Chamberlin Free Public Library Catalog

Alaska /

Michener, James A. 1907-1997.

Alaska / - 1st ed. - New York : Random House, c1988. - [2], x, [2], 868 p. : 2 col. maps ; 25 cm.

The maps are on lining papers. "Of the first edition ... one thousand copies have been specially bound. These books are signed by the author and numbered 1 to 1000"--Prelim. p. [1] LC copy, deposited for copyright, is specially bound, but unsigned, unnumbered.

The high points in the story of Alaska since the American acquisition are brought vividly to life through more than 100 characters, real and fictional. Another told-from-the-beginning-of-time Michener saga, this one featuring Alaska. The book begins a billion years ago. Its first characters are the mastadon and the woolly mammoth, followed by such other settlers as the Eskimos, Athapaskans, and Russians. Vignettes of characters as varied as the Danish navigator Vitus Bering, who explored Alaska for Russia's Peter the Great, and Kendra Scott, the young Colorado teacher who taught the Eskimo children during the recent Prudhoe Bay oil boom, illustrate the colorful history of this vast and exploited land. Early on the book is vintage Michener, but the momentum encounters an Arctic chill midway. Final sections are trite, uneven, and overloaded with stereotypes. Too cumbersome to be called fiction, but Michener fans will demand it anyway.



0394569814 (lim. ed.) 9780394569819 (lim. ed.) 0394551540 9780394551548

87043232


Geschichte


Alaska--History--Fiction.
Alaska.


Historical fiction.

PS3525.I19 / A79 1988

813/.54