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A review by corinnekeener
The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride by Daniel James Brown
4.0
I'm going to start out with a pretty big caveat because I think it's important to keep in mind when reading this book and other books about American history that similarly white-wash Native Americans. This book is not good at accurately depicting historical treatment of Native American communities. While Native Americans are not entirely central to the story of the Donner Party, when they are mentioned, the handling is a little too delicate (and I mean this in how the author chose to write about the way white people treated the Native Americans) to be realistic. I take significant offense to the author claiming that the naked Miwoks on Johnson's Ranch were just there to "work." The murder of two Native American guides is treated almost as a footnote compared to the deaths and subsequent cannibalization of other members of the party. I also would have appreciated a little more interrogation of the ideal of Manifest Destiny, but here we are - in the 21st century, still kind of looking at it as if it was the only good option people had.
My rating and review henceforth will be about the telling of the Donner Party Saga as pertained to the Donner Party.
If you like a good disaster story, it's hard to find one better than this. Brown has compiled a great amount of research; even looking into the scientific reasons for why women tend to out-survive men in situations like this, and what happens to your body when it swings from hyper to hypo-thermia. And that's just on top of every single second of the book being a living nightmare.
Holy shit, ya'll. These white people had pretty good times out East. Not the greatest because it was still 1845 and everything sucked compared to 2019 standards, but relatively! They had land and money and places to live and food even if it was hard. But because someone convinced them that they'd have MORE out in California or Oregon they uprooted their pregnant wives and walked 1600 miles and then decided to take the untested route of a certified psychopath who "found" a shortcut on a map and needed people to go to California because he wanted to steal it from Mexico. It's literally got everything: honest-to-God disasterous horror AND scams!
It's basically the history of America in one real-life allegory.
My rating and review henceforth will be about the telling of the Donner Party Saga as pertained to the Donner Party.
If you like a good disaster story, it's hard to find one better than this. Brown has compiled a great amount of research; even looking into the scientific reasons for why women tend to out-survive men in situations like this, and what happens to your body when it swings from hyper to hypo-thermia. And that's just on top of every single second of the book being a living nightmare.
Holy shit, ya'll. These white people had pretty good times out East. Not the greatest because it was still 1845 and everything sucked compared to 2019 standards, but relatively! They had land and money and places to live and food even if it was hard. But because someone convinced them that they'd have MORE out in California or Oregon they uprooted their pregnant wives and walked 1600 miles and then decided to take the untested route of a certified psychopath who "found" a shortcut on a map and needed people to go to California because he wanted to steal it from Mexico. It's literally got everything: honest-to-God disasterous horror AND scams!
It's basically the history of America in one real-life allegory.