History Book Review Mark Twain Roughing It Essays

History Book Review Mark Twain Roughing It Essays History Book Review Mark Twain Roughing It Essay History Book Review Mark Twain Roughing It Essay Mark Twain, Roughing It, New York City, Signet Classics, 1962, 448 pages, Appendix The book Roughing It is about the early journeys of Mark Twain is the west during the mining boom in Nevada and the Western States of the Union . Twain travels across the States to places such as St. Louis, San Francisco, and The Sandwich Islands in Hawaii. At the Beginning of the book Twain envisions that his brother will strike it big in the west. Later on he is offered a chance to accompany his brother in a journey to the west. Then the story of Slade comes it is about a man who killed another man in a fight and then fled from his home state of Illinois. He gained a reputation by fighting Indians which he than got a job as a agent with Overland. Twain then encounter alot of people along the to the Whiteman Cement Mine. The Whiteman Cement Mine was told to have a massive amount of gold. It was discover accidentally by the Germans. Near the end of the story Twain goes to Honolulu and is very drawn to the city and its vibrant colors. He spends 6 months there then comes back to San Francisco to be poor. He than ended his 7 year journey there in San Francisco being a public speaker. This book had a very significant amount of content of the West United States. It really discribed Nevada and California from a early standpoint. There is numerous facts about the West and Mark Twain that i never knew about. It also has a very humorous tone to it Twain makes fun of the Western people. The Gold Rush is one of my favorite parts in U. S history and i found it very interesting on how Twain described it apart from the text books in school. Also the author Twain is a great american writer who hardly ever disappoints. The book did have some downside to it though. In the story it seemed like about of it was just ramblings about the story and would go off topic alot. Also this was a little to much information for just one book. I really think it should have been split up is to separate books. It also got very confusing and hard to follow near the end due to him going off topic and then jumping straight back into the story. The vocabulary used in this story is old western and very hard to follow in what was being said but not overly difficult. Lastly he doesnt touch alot on some of the more important subjects like government and politics as i would have though. Roughing it is based in the Western States mainly in California and Nevada and has a large amount of facts about those two states. The people who should read this are people who are taking a class on western history or California or Nevada history and just people who like western history in general. This is just a great book to explore the past vicariously through Twains writing.