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Bad Land: An American Romance
A New York Times Editors' Choice for Book of the Year
Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award
Winner of the PEN West Creative Nonfiction Award
"No one has evoked with greater power the marriage of land and sky that gives this country both its beauty and its terror. "-Washington Post Book World
In 1909 maps still identified eastern Montana as the Great American Desert. But in that year Congress, lobbied heavily by railroad companies, offered 320-acre tracts of land to anyone bold or foolish enough to stake a claim to them. Drawn by shamelessly inventive brochures, countless homesteaders--many of them immigrants--went west to make their fortunes. Most failed. In Bad Land, Jonathan Raban travels through the unforgiving country that was the scene of their dreams and undoing, and makes their story come miraculously alive.
In towns named Terry, Calypso, and Ismay (which changed its name to Joe, Montana, in an effort to attract football fans), and in the landscape in between, Raban unearths a vanished episode of American history, with its own ruins, its own heroes and heroines, its own hopeful myths and bitter memories. Startlingly observed, beautifully written, this book is a contemporary classic of the American West.
"Exceptional. . . . A beautifully told historical meditation. "
--Time
"Championship prose. . . . In fifty years don't be surprised if Bad Land is a landmark."
--Los Angeles Times
Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award
Winner of the PEN West Creative Nonfiction Award
"No one has evoked with greater power the marriage of land and sky that gives this country both its beauty and its terror. "-Washington Post Book World
In 1909 maps still identified eastern Montana as the Great American Desert. But in that year Congress, lobbied heavily by railroad companies, offered 320-acre tracts of land to anyone bold or foolish enough to stake a claim to them. Drawn by shamelessly inventive brochures, countless homesteaders--many of them immigrants--went west to make their fortunes. Most failed. In Bad Land, Jonathan Raban travels through the unforgiving country that was the scene of their dreams and undoing, and makes their story come miraculously alive.
In towns named Terry, Calypso, and Ismay (which changed its name to Joe, Montana, in an effort to attract football fans), and in the landscape in between, Raban unearths a vanished episode of American history, with its own ruins, its own heroes and heroines, its own hopeful myths and bitter memories. Startlingly observed, beautifully written, this book is a contemporary classic of the American West.
"Exceptional. . . . A beautifully told historical meditation. "
--Time
"Championship prose. . . . In fifty years don't be surprised if Bad Land is a landmark."
--Los Angeles Times
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
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About the author
Jonathan Raban
56 books190 followersBritish travel writer, critic and novelist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan...
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May 11, 2022
AMERICAN GOTHIC
”American Gothic” è il celebre dipinto di Grant Wood conservato all’Art Institute di Chicago. A fianco, l’esilarante parodia di “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”.
Jonathan Raban prende una generosa dose di storia, aggiunge geografia, topografia ed economia; miscela con antropologia e sociologia; agita con botanica, agraria, meteorologia e un po’ di zoologia; spruzza sentore di meccanica, gusto di viaggio, aroma d’autobiografia. Guarnisce con una fettina di cronaca e un cespuglio infestante d’artemisia. Ecco pronto un ottimo BAD LAND liscio che può accompagnarci per qualche giorno di piacevole sorseggiamento.
Il quadro originale accanto ai due modelli usati da Grant Wood: sua sorella Nan, e il suo dentista Byron McKeeby.
All’inizio del secolo scorso, il governo americano, sotto la pressione delle lobby dei costruttori di ferrovie, decise di popolare un’immensa landa deserta, l’arida prateria del Montana orientale.
Gli incentivi messi in moto furono corposi, con tanto di massiccio ricorso alla pubblicità “progresso” (con la stessa onestà di quella che gira da noi di questi tempi, un uomo con la barba lunga e l’espressione da disperato che dovrebbe rappresentare il prototipo dell’evasore fiscale!?), la terra veniva a offerta a prezzi stracciati: e i ‘polli’ arrivarono, insieme ai ‘tordi’.
Martin Sheen e Sissy Spacek protagonisti di “Badlands – La rabbia giovane”, magnifico esordio di Terrence Malick. Per lei mancavano ancora tre anni a “Carrie”. Lui aveva cominciato già da tempo, giovanissimo, a sedici anni, e ne mancavano ancora sei ad “Apocalypse Now”.
Si spaccarono la schiena, le unghie, le mani su quella terra inadatta alle coltivazioni, che d’inverno raggiungeva facilmente e per lunghi mesi meno 30°. La maggior parte degli improvvisati agricoltori durò solo qualche anno: non pioveva abbastanza, aridità e freddo uccidevano anche le migliori intenzioni, le banche prestavano denaro con facilità e i debiti crescevano a dismisura.
Ripartirono e si spinsero ancora più a ovest. La conquista del West.
Qualcuno, invece, rimase - pochi, pochissimi. Raban segue tutti, incontra, conosce, intervista, ricostruisce.
E scrive in modo piacevole e ironico.
Il capolavoro assoluto di Terrence Malick “Days of Heaven”, 1978. Qui la celebre scena dell’invasione delle cavallette. Sullo sfondo la casa del padrone, Sam Shepard, che più gotica non si potrebbe.
Ho goduto la vicinanza al grande Malick: 'Badlands', il suo esordio, è ambientato in parte di questa geografia; ma anche il secondo, per me il suo vero capolavoro, 'Days of Heaven' ha analogie col libro di Raban: l'epoca, 1916, la ferrovia, i migranti, i coltivatori, l'invasione delle cavallette, il gotico domestico...
La casa di Sam Shepard in “Days of Heaven” in costruzione.
”American Gothic” è il celebre dipinto di Grant Wood conservato all’Art Institute di Chicago. A fianco, l’esilarante parodia di “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”.
Jonathan Raban prende una generosa dose di storia, aggiunge geografia, topografia ed economia; miscela con antropologia e sociologia; agita con botanica, agraria, meteorologia e un po’ di zoologia; spruzza sentore di meccanica, gusto di viaggio, aroma d’autobiografia. Guarnisce con una fettina di cronaca e un cespuglio infestante d’artemisia. Ecco pronto un ottimo BAD LAND liscio che può accompagnarci per qualche giorno di piacevole sorseggiamento.
Il quadro originale accanto ai due modelli usati da Grant Wood: sua sorella Nan, e il suo dentista Byron McKeeby.
All’inizio del secolo scorso, il governo americano, sotto la pressione delle lobby dei costruttori di ferrovie, decise di popolare un’immensa landa deserta, l’arida prateria del Montana orientale.
Gli incentivi messi in moto furono corposi, con tanto di massiccio ricorso alla pubblicità “progresso” (con la stessa onestà di quella che gira da noi di questi tempi, un uomo con la barba lunga e l’espressione da disperato che dovrebbe rappresentare il prototipo dell’evasore fiscale!?), la terra veniva a offerta a prezzi stracciati: e i ‘polli’ arrivarono, insieme ai ‘tordi’.
Martin Sheen e Sissy Spacek protagonisti di “Badlands – La rabbia giovane”, magnifico esordio di Terrence Malick. Per lei mancavano ancora tre anni a “Carrie”. Lui aveva cominciato già da tempo, giovanissimo, a sedici anni, e ne mancavano ancora sei ad “Apocalypse Now”.
Si spaccarono la schiena, le unghie, le mani su quella terra inadatta alle coltivazioni, che d’inverno raggiungeva facilmente e per lunghi mesi meno 30°. La maggior parte degli improvvisati agricoltori durò solo qualche anno: non pioveva abbastanza, aridità e freddo uccidevano anche le migliori intenzioni, le banche prestavano denaro con facilità e i debiti crescevano a dismisura.
Ripartirono e si spinsero ancora più a ovest. La conquista del West.
Qualcuno, invece, rimase - pochi, pochissimi. Raban segue tutti, incontra, conosce, intervista, ricostruisce.
E scrive in modo piacevole e ironico.
Il capolavoro assoluto di Terrence Malick “Days of Heaven”, 1978. Qui la celebre scena dell’invasione delle cavallette. Sullo sfondo la casa del padrone, Sam Shepard, che più gotica non si potrebbe.
Ho goduto la vicinanza al grande Malick: 'Badlands', il suo esordio, è ambientato in parte di questa geografia; ma anche il secondo, per me il suo vero capolavoro, 'Days of Heaven' ha analogie col libro di Raban: l'epoca, 1916, la ferrovia, i migranti, i coltivatori, l'invasione delle cavallette, il gotico domestico...
La casa di Sam Shepard in “Days of Heaven” in costruzione.
February 7, 2008
I picked this book up on the advice of the gossip monger of Terry, Montana. Terry is my favorite town ever, but I can't live there because there are no jobs and the wind would cause me to go insane, run away and live in a creek bed with my horse, and then drown in a sudden summer storm in a flash flood, which would lead the creek to be known as "Drowned Crazy Woman Creek."
The book a good telling of a myriad of experiences of the homesteaders of the early 20th century in the dryland region of Eastern Montana. It's biased by the author in parts, which led to some of the families it was written about being pretty angry at Mr. Raban.
Did you know that of all the immigration throughout America's history, the state that recieved the MOST immigrants was actually Montana? And did you know that its homestead boom peaked relatively late, with land still being settled for the first time in 1920?
No one lives there any more. Hardly anyone is left of the original homesteaders, especially after the great Depression.
One of the reasons I love Terry so much is that the road out of town is "Bad Route Road." Also because there's so many abandoned homesteads, and such a big sky, and so much waving grass, and the rivers are silty and the cactus stab through my cowgirl boots and there are secret graves of homesteaders, cowboys and indians scattered about on private lands.
When Carrie and I were there, the woman at the Prairie County Museum showed me a photo of the class of 1914, which was maybe 45 kids. Then she showed me a picture of the class of 2004, which was 12. I'm not sure how to feel about that-- should I be upset at the death of another community? Or should I be happy the land is returning to wildness? Or the failure of man and the triumph of nature? Or the general de-settlement of the plains?
The book a good telling of a myriad of experiences of the homesteaders of the early 20th century in the dryland region of Eastern Montana. It's biased by the author in parts, which led to some of the families it was written about being pretty angry at Mr. Raban.
Did you know that of all the immigration throughout America's history, the state that recieved the MOST immigrants was actually Montana? And did you know that its homestead boom peaked relatively late, with land still being settled for the first time in 1920?
No one lives there any more. Hardly anyone is left of the original homesteaders, especially after the great Depression.
One of the reasons I love Terry so much is that the road out of town is "Bad Route Road." Also because there's so many abandoned homesteads, and such a big sky, and so much waving grass, and the rivers are silty and the cactus stab through my cowgirl boots and there are secret graves of homesteaders, cowboys and indians scattered about on private lands.
When Carrie and I were there, the woman at the Prairie County Museum showed me a photo of the class of 1914, which was maybe 45 kids. Then she showed me a picture of the class of 2004, which was 12. I'm not sure how to feel about that-- should I be upset at the death of another community? Or should I be happy the land is returning to wildness? Or the failure of man and the triumph of nature? Or the general de-settlement of the plains?
April 14, 2022
Raban calls the Northern Pacific Railroad a latecomer. The story of the families it brought westward as homesteaders is historically the very end of such things. Its life as a railroad depended on bringing people and then supplies to places like the areas in eastern Montana that the author talks about. Successful settlers would make for steady RR business and develop an extended line westward. New (crackpot) ideas about dry land farming were pushed on people lacking pertinent experience. The government enacted one last grant of lands to homesteaders who received what they thought was nearly free land that would reap gold. The government and the railroads didn’t want these people to fail, but they certainly set them up for a fall. Worst of all was the glorious advertising meant to lure innocents to land they couldn’t possibly maintain.
The big homesteading push to this area began in 1909 during a cycle of “barely adequate” rainfall. Well, the rain didn’t follow the plow as advertised. What followed was drought, dustbowl, and the Great Depression. Raban goes to towns like Terry and Ismay looking for what remains of the homesteaders and their properties. Precious little it turns out. His book is lyrical and sad at the same time.
Bad Land hit me hard. My paternal grandparents fit this narrative perfectly. Although they tried farming in an adjacent state, they arrived by rail the same year, were recent emigrants from Europe and were undercapitalized innocents. The life broke my grandfather’s health, my grandmother’s heart and convinced my father to get the heck off the farm. My dad had learned skills Raban mentions the Montana immigrants used to supplement their meager lives. Beekeeping and carpentry got my dad through college. The farm is long gone.
Bad Land trails off in the end, supposedly following the westward trajectory of those leaving Montana with their tails tucked between their legs. I thought his portrait of them somewhat unfair and do not understand his stops at places where the Unabomber was captured or talking about northern Idaho survivalists to be really part of this story. Sad ending to a good book.
The big homesteading push to this area began in 1909 during a cycle of “barely adequate” rainfall. Well, the rain didn’t follow the plow as advertised. What followed was drought, dustbowl, and the Great Depression. Raban goes to towns like Terry and Ismay looking for what remains of the homesteaders and their properties. Precious little it turns out. His book is lyrical and sad at the same time.
Bad Land hit me hard. My paternal grandparents fit this narrative perfectly. Although they tried farming in an adjacent state, they arrived by rail the same year, were recent emigrants from Europe and were undercapitalized innocents. The life broke my grandfather’s health, my grandmother’s heart and convinced my father to get the heck off the farm. My dad had learned skills Raban mentions the Montana immigrants used to supplement their meager lives. Beekeeping and carpentry got my dad through college. The farm is long gone.
Bad Land trails off in the end, supposedly following the westward trajectory of those leaving Montana with their tails tucked between their legs. I thought his portrait of them somewhat unfair and do not understand his stops at places where the Unabomber was captured or talking about northern Idaho survivalists to be really part of this story. Sad ending to a good book.
February 21, 2023
Review yet to come!
March 9, 2011
Strange that there isn't a genre of literature devoted to place. Sure, there are "travel" books, but these tend to suggest dalliances, adventures that are measured in days, passports, tourism. But I find myself increasingly drawn to books and authors that explore locations as biographers would explore lives: delving into personalities, histories, parentage, lovers, abusers, and the details that so many casual passers-by might miss. Jonathan Raban's exploration of the ruined, Eastern stretches of Montana truly vivify that sparse and lonely place. He describes the poetic ghostliness of the abandoned ranches, towns, and schoolhouses that dot the landscape, and the forces that both drew settlers in and forced them out of their American Dream. The way towns were created from dust and clapboard, placed along regular intervals on the railway, and then filled with dreamers who believed the glossy brochures they were sent about soil quality and abundance in the West. He talks about the fickle nature of the rain, in a place where even slight variations can tip the balance between subsistence and ruin. He takes us to the farm where his father lived as a child, still filled with the objects and memories his father was so keen to leave behind. And he shows us the people who still cling, with great tenacity, to these vast and delicate-soiled plains.
I have been to Eastern Montana a few times, but mostly explored cities and towns like Billings and Livingston. I did drive through the empty, quiet stretches near Kalispell and the Native American reservation there that hint of the desolation about which Raban speaks. But reading his book makes me want to go back again, to look more closely, and to photograph the little outposts that remain before they disappear completely.
I have been to Eastern Montana a few times, but mostly explored cities and towns like Billings and Livingston. I did drive through the empty, quiet stretches near Kalispell and the Native American reservation there that hint of the desolation about which Raban speaks. But reading his book makes me want to go back again, to look more closely, and to photograph the little outposts that remain before they disappear completely.
December 15, 2012
When I first moved to South Dakota, a bookseller friend recommended this book as an avenue to understanding the people and the place that has now been my home for over a decade. Raban writes as an outsider seeing the Great Plains through personal discovery of the land, artifacts, historical records, and conversations. So he walks through one of the prairie skeletons that dot the western prairies and describes what he sees--the things left by the unfortunate homeowners back in the Thirties who despaired of making a living from the parched earth and left hurriedly. He describes the lives of early settlers and the role that railroads, ideas like dry earth farming and romantic notions of the West played in their decision to migrate. He combs local historical records to learn more about his subjects.
The book is haunting and as beautifully written as anything Raban has done, that is to say, well-written indeed. It especially helped me to understand the conservatism of those who stayed.
The book is haunting and as beautifully written as anything Raban has done, that is to say, well-written indeed. It especially helped me to understand the conservatism of those who stayed.
January 30, 2018
Although Raban wrote this 20+ years ago (though Goodreads claims 30), it resonates aptly in these days or political grudges and tribalism. The author is a Brit, writing as a somewhat arch, occasionally patronizing, but often eloquent outsider, about the trials, challenges, and defeats of homesteading eastern Montana in the early 1900s, taking a long view of the aftermath of those earlier events. Wannabee homesteaders fell for the line of government, scientific, and railroad colluders, promoting the surefire scheme of “dry farming.” (Replace scientists with evangelical Christian preachers, hoodwinking Swedish immigrants fifty years earlier, and you’ve got the life situation of my great-great grandparents, who got off the train in Salina in 1869, expecting central Kansas to be a land of milk and honey “just like Värmland.”) For many who made the trek, it did not end well.
Raban reconstructs the 1910s to 1930s struggles of several families, but also tracks their descendents down through the 1990s. Later generations have not forgotten the misguided, “scientific” schemes, promoted (or dictated) by federal outsiders and paternalistic politicians, which in the end seemed chiefly to line the pockets of wealthy easterners. (In such light, “Global Warming” can sound like just the latest such scientific scheme to benefit outsiders.)
Although Raban’s penchant for arrresting turns of phrase may occasionally take his generalizations a little too far, his portraits of individual players in this epic, “big sky” drama are vivid, personal, and frequently sympathetic. His frequent digressions into such areas as the “science” of dry farming, authors’ representations of that world out west, textbooks and turn-of-the-century education, political schemes may occasionally sprawl like the landscape. The chapter on capturing the look of the land in the mind’s eye and the camera lens worked particularly well for me—though the failure to include illustrations seemed a missed opportunity. (Raban’s carefully crafted prose gets the reader only so far.)
I started the book, put it down, then took it up again a week or two later and found that it was growing on me. I also found myself talking about it to others: not something that happens with a lot of my “idle reading.”
Raban reconstructs the 1910s to 1930s struggles of several families, but also tracks their descendents down through the 1990s. Later generations have not forgotten the misguided, “scientific” schemes, promoted (or dictated) by federal outsiders and paternalistic politicians, which in the end seemed chiefly to line the pockets of wealthy easterners. (In such light, “Global Warming” can sound like just the latest such scientific scheme to benefit outsiders.)
Although Raban’s penchant for arrresting turns of phrase may occasionally take his generalizations a little too far, his portraits of individual players in this epic, “big sky” drama are vivid, personal, and frequently sympathetic. His frequent digressions into such areas as the “science” of dry farming, authors’ representations of that world out west, textbooks and turn-of-the-century education, political schemes may occasionally sprawl like the landscape. The chapter on capturing the look of the land in the mind’s eye and the camera lens worked particularly well for me—though the failure to include illustrations seemed a missed opportunity. (Raban’s carefully crafted prose gets the reader only so far.)
I started the book, put it down, then took it up again a week or two later and found that it was growing on me. I also found myself talking about it to others: not something that happens with a lot of my “idle reading.”
February 27, 2016
3.5 stars. Some beautiful, thoughtful writing. Some of it was also slow as molasses, and I thought some connections the author made seemed tenuous, if elegant, but I learned a lot and am glad I read it. In the early 20th century, railroad companies and the US government teamed up to settle the area of eastern Montana then known on maps as the Great American Desert with homesteaders. They touted the benefits of a new agricultural trend called 'dry farming.' That the latter was a mug's game was not immediately apparent, since the railways began importing hopeful homesteaders during a brief series of years with higher than usual rainfall. Over time, however, the region dried out again, and emptied itself of most of the homesteaders. Evocative descriptions of the landscape, interesting history.
February 26, 2013
Early in the twentieth century homesteaders came to the dry Eastern plains of Montana from all over including Europe, Scandinavia, the East Coast of the United States. They were drawn by government offers of free land and by artfully deceptive pamphlets with instruction on the new, scientific method of "dry farming". After a few hopeful seasons the rain stopped, the land dried up and these determined newcomers were ruined. Some hung on to the land, others fled west, heartbroken and eager for any kind of work. Jonathan Raban weaves the story of these pioneers with the memories of their descendents. He travels in their footsteps and describes the scenes they must have observed. His prose is witty. He has a native curiosity about long forgotten events ad brings them to life.
June 7, 2008
If you ever wanted to know why the people of the Northwest (and we're not talking the cityfolk in Seattle) think and feel they way they do, then this is the book you need to read to understand the history behind the politics and attitudes of today. This is a fascinating look at the history of a particular period and area of our country and Bad Land pays big dividends for those who decide they want to know some things they otherwise might not. One of my favorite non-fiction books.
November 19, 2012
This book has been on my radar since it was published in 1998, so yes, that's a very long time.
Mr. Raban goes to Montana and explores the promises that brought a generation of homesteaders to the state in the early 1900s, how their dreams worked out (badly, for as we know now, these poor souls were looking at the dust bowl and Great Depression in just a generation.) It was a little weird for me to figure out he was British. That was never mentioned directly, and instead I was left to figure it out when he frequently compared the scenery to England instead of, say, Iowa. It was odd not only to not have that addressed specifically, but to have a Brit writing about something so incredibly American.
But that said, it was a terrific book. He really captured the hope and optimism, while showing the marketing that was used to obscure the inevitable difficulties. It kept bringing me back to memories of The Little House books, of how hard and rewarding farming can be, and how the hope for the future can conquer any qualms. Mr. Raban's love of the region is palpable and his respect the for people is admirable. His writing is fluid and his descriptions are evocative. I do wish there was a photo section, not only of the geography, but of the people who lived there, and of the old photos he talks about finding, but also from the famous photographers who were in the area and documented the life.
Overall I did like the book a lot, while it left me wanting more (the images particularly) it mostly left me wanting to visit the region! I'd love to see the buttes and the badlands he's talking about. Anyone who's interested in the American West needs to read this book for a better understanding of our heartland.
Mr. Raban goes to Montana and explores the promises that brought a generation of homesteaders to the state in the early 1900s, how their dreams worked out (badly, for as we know now, these poor souls were looking at the dust bowl and Great Depression in just a generation.) It was a little weird for me to figure out he was British. That was never mentioned directly, and instead I was left to figure it out when he frequently compared the scenery to England instead of, say, Iowa. It was odd not only to not have that addressed specifically, but to have a Brit writing about something so incredibly American.
But that said, it was a terrific book. He really captured the hope and optimism, while showing the marketing that was used to obscure the inevitable difficulties. It kept bringing me back to memories of The Little House books, of how hard and rewarding farming can be, and how the hope for the future can conquer any qualms. Mr. Raban's love of the region is palpable and his respect the for people is admirable. His writing is fluid and his descriptions are evocative. I do wish there was a photo section, not only of the geography, but of the people who lived there, and of the old photos he talks about finding, but also from the famous photographers who were in the area and documented the life.
Overall I did like the book a lot, while it left me wanting more (the images particularly) it mostly left me wanting to visit the region! I'd love to see the buttes and the badlands he's talking about. Anyone who's interested in the American West needs to read this book for a better understanding of our heartland.
December 23, 2007
Fascinating and well written. The book follows closely a group of families that settled in the same area near Ismay, MT. Those that managed to stay and those that picked up and headed west. It is now clear that most of the area is much too dry to farm and is livestock land. He talks to their kids and grandkids, reads their writings and uses a book of interviews of people from the area that was put together in 1972.
My sister gave this book to me. She picked this book up because our mom was born in 1920 in Glasgow, MT. Different railroad (the book follows the Milwaukie Road, Glasgow is on the Great Northern), same scene. Our grandfather had arrived before the homestead act and worked for the railroad. He worked for the land office and proved up on a claim. Our grandmother came west from New York state to teach at the high school. Her mom had let her come because her older brother was already established in Glasgow as an attorney. Mom said that after a drought, a flood and a year when everyone grew a bumper crop of feed corn and the bottom dropped out of the market, grandpa pulled up stakes and headed east to St. Paul in about 1925. Mom also said that her oldest sister was getting ready to go to high school and grandpa had said that he wanted something better for his daughters than to be farm or ranch wives. He sold his land to a family that raised sheep.
If you like this book I would also recommend Miles from Nowhere and Nothing To Do But Stay in my list.
My sister gave this book to me. She picked this book up because our mom was born in 1920 in Glasgow, MT. Different railroad (the book follows the Milwaukie Road, Glasgow is on the Great Northern), same scene. Our grandfather had arrived before the homestead act and worked for the railroad. He worked for the land office and proved up on a claim. Our grandmother came west from New York state to teach at the high school. Her mom had let her come because her older brother was already established in Glasgow as an attorney. Mom said that after a drought, a flood and a year when everyone grew a bumper crop of feed corn and the bottom dropped out of the market, grandpa pulled up stakes and headed east to St. Paul in about 1925. Mom also said that her oldest sister was getting ready to go to high school and grandpa had said that he wanted something better for his daughters than to be farm or ranch wives. He sold his land to a family that raised sheep.
If you like this book I would also recommend Miles from Nowhere and Nothing To Do But Stay in my list.
July 5, 2015
Jonathan Raban's Bad Land traces the growth and decline of family farming in the inhospitable territory of Eastern Montana. At the beginning of the 20th century, this area was touted as the next great frontier (mostly by the railways who were looking to find inhabitants for the depot towns they needed). Thousands of European immigrants as well as seasoned Midwestern farmers looking for opportunities to expand arrived to stake their claims on soil that was proclaimed to be astonishingly fertile. They fell prey to all manner of natural ills and kookie theories about farming until eventually nearly all of them gave up and moved further west.
Raban traces the stories of particular families (both those who stayed and those who fled) and his own "foreigner's" perspective (he is an Englishman who live in Seattle) lends another layer of interest. This is a fascinating and wonderfully written book!
Raban traces the stories of particular families (both those who stayed and those who fled) and his own "foreigner's" perspective (he is an Englishman who live in Seattle) lends another layer of interest. This is a fascinating and wonderfully written book!
August 10, 2013
I was about to rate this book a Four until the last three chapters, but these were so engrossing I upped my rating to Five. Book is mainly about how railroads circa 1910 promoted eastern Montana to immigrants and easterners as the end of the rainbow, took them out there and dumped them. Author spent two years in the 1990s visiting the area, rummaging through deserted farmsteads, talking with descendants from the duped families as well as with those who now prosper. Families seduced into small-farm homesteading onto the bleak prairies thrived at first, but then came drought, extreme cold, hail, tornados, fire and grasshoppers. Many moved further west in the 1920s, more in the 1930s. Beginning in the 1940s a new ranch-based society evolved, one more modest than the one envisioned by early settlers but sustainable.
March 15, 2018
Probably the finest work on an American landscape I've read. Raban's skill with description, metaphor, humor, love of the land and people is moving. He weaves his own contemporary interviews and experiences with historical journals, stories from descendants, and local flavors using a novelistic approach staying away from a dry, academic or journalistic perspective. Eastern Montana, part of an area once called The Great American Desert, settled through government and railroad conniving, lured those from the overcrowded cities of the east to the western prairie where Raban draws upon stories of both successful and unsuccessful farmers and ranchers, land destroyed and rehabilitated, and rain, much needed and seldom found rain. Marvelous and compelling read, highly recommended.
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August 8, 2020Another one of my recent book reviews for the Miles City Star!
“Bad Land: An American Romance” depicts homesteader's original fixation with Eastern Montana as truly such a romance. For all the early 1900’s homesteaders who dropped everything and moved here, that romance was one part the land which was described as the “Great American Desert” and the somewhat mythical properties that came along with it. The other part was an image at the center of the romance, one that was displayed on the front of pamphlets distributed worldwide making Eastern Montana and the badlands the place where riches are in the ground. The image was of a man in boots and shirtsleeves guiding a lightweight pulled by a horse. The great promise of homesteading was made behind the man with not wheat being harrowed, but instead hundreds of gold coins.
Of course, people knew the image was as much a fantasy as anything else . . . but was it? After seeing the “science” behind dry farming that essentially described Eastern Montana as a sort of new Eden (it’s not), discovering that you could get a half-mile plot of land free, and others hearing the stories of assumed success that go something along the lines of: “When Dad came out here, he had $25, a wagon and a mule,” that image of a person ploughing gold coins became all the more less pretend, and more of an attractive reality away from the city life that was beginning to wear upon people.
In the 1997 history book, author Jonathan Raban explores what attracted so many homesteaders to Eastern Montana with Miles City being the hub for those homesteaders. It’s with as many recreations of what was it like for those homesteaders, as there are current-day discussions with the homesteaders who actually managed to be more or less that rare person who actually made it out here.
The book starts out where many homesteader's adventures with describing a scene where how the era where almost every half-mile there was a ranch has become an era in which a new ranch can be seen roughly every ten miles.
In a wrecked house, Raban sees not much is left in his explorations. In the corner however, he finds a book well-preserved dedicated to finances. The first couple of pages, the finances are initially well-organized with revenue and expenses well balanced. It doesn't look so bad. But then, the expenses began to swell, the expenses themselves became more numerous.The writing and arithmetic became increasingly scrawled with the final expense of $1040.40, a loan, written over and over islanded with shaky circles.
Raban wrote: “What the bottom line always says is the old 2 a.m. cry: We can’t go on living like this.”
Raban doesn’t say that the initial romance with the land is over, it just might have shifted somewhat as people found work off the ranch and gave up on their ketchup-on-bread table scraps lifestyle that the homestead lifestyle demanded for so many. He explores what homesteading was like for people raised in the era and explores through extensive research the sense of adventure, hopefulness, disappointment and despair that the lifestyle lent for so many.
In a way, Raban expresses a similar excitement and uncertainty in his own explorations that homesteaders must have felt more than a century ago when they left everything and arrived by train.
“This research consisted of long, exhilarating drives on dirt roads over the prairie and through the badlands punctuated by occasional calls on ranchers and farms. I bought a straw hat, and a pair of knee-high boots to deflect rattlesnakes. I traded in my Dodge Daytona for a 4-wheel-drive Jeep. My wife watched all this with poorly feigned enthusiasm,” Raban wrote.
As much as this is a history book, it’s better described as a book on place. The beginning of it is more centered in the past, while the latter half looks at sort of the current affairs at the time. While interesting, 23 years after publication, the book comes off as rather unfocused at times. You wonder why the Unabomber or the Waco Siege was brought up, when “Bad Land” is meant to focus on homesteaders and the terrain that housed their hopes, until you see the publication date of 1997, and it makes a lot more sense.
That works as both a strength and weakness for this book. At times, it feels much less a definitive history and more of a book based on what Raban is interested in or wants to talk about. I should say it never makes such a claim to be a definitive history, but when the book claims in its dust jacket that Raban in his recreation “ . . . strips away the myth — while preserving the romance — that has shrouded our understanding” of the badlands, it seems frivolous to include a passage to include a passage about the author’s chilly walk back to a hotel in Missoula.
However, his own interests make the book stand out, and the writing is phenomenal while he does so. While it may not be the history book that the genre itself describes it as, it provides a portrait of that romance that so many initially found with the badlands, and that some are still finding today. For that reason, while I may personally not be the biggest history reader, the book is one I recommend if you want to take yourself through more of the sentiments and the journey of what homesteading was like for so many.
“Bad Land: An American Romance” depicts homesteader's original fixation with Eastern Montana as truly such a romance. For all the early 1900’s homesteaders who dropped everything and moved here, that romance was one part the land which was described as the “Great American Desert” and the somewhat mythical properties that came along with it. The other part was an image at the center of the romance, one that was displayed on the front of pamphlets distributed worldwide making Eastern Montana and the badlands the place where riches are in the ground. The image was of a man in boots and shirtsleeves guiding a lightweight pulled by a horse. The great promise of homesteading was made behind the man with not wheat being harrowed, but instead hundreds of gold coins.
Of course, people knew the image was as much a fantasy as anything else . . . but was it? After seeing the “science” behind dry farming that essentially described Eastern Montana as a sort of new Eden (it’s not), discovering that you could get a half-mile plot of land free, and others hearing the stories of assumed success that go something along the lines of: “When Dad came out here, he had $25, a wagon and a mule,” that image of a person ploughing gold coins became all the more less pretend, and more of an attractive reality away from the city life that was beginning to wear upon people.
In the 1997 history book, author Jonathan Raban explores what attracted so many homesteaders to Eastern Montana with Miles City being the hub for those homesteaders. It’s with as many recreations of what was it like for those homesteaders, as there are current-day discussions with the homesteaders who actually managed to be more or less that rare person who actually made it out here.
The book starts out where many homesteader's adventures with describing a scene where how the era where almost every half-mile there was a ranch has become an era in which a new ranch can be seen roughly every ten miles.
In a wrecked house, Raban sees not much is left in his explorations. In the corner however, he finds a book well-preserved dedicated to finances. The first couple of pages, the finances are initially well-organized with revenue and expenses well balanced. It doesn't look so bad. But then, the expenses began to swell, the expenses themselves became more numerous.The writing and arithmetic became increasingly scrawled with the final expense of $1040.40, a loan, written over and over islanded with shaky circles.
Raban wrote: “What the bottom line always says is the old 2 a.m. cry: We can’t go on living like this.”
Raban doesn’t say that the initial romance with the land is over, it just might have shifted somewhat as people found work off the ranch and gave up on their ketchup-on-bread table scraps lifestyle that the homestead lifestyle demanded for so many. He explores what homesteading was like for people raised in the era and explores through extensive research the sense of adventure, hopefulness, disappointment and despair that the lifestyle lent for so many.
In a way, Raban expresses a similar excitement and uncertainty in his own explorations that homesteaders must have felt more than a century ago when they left everything and arrived by train.
“This research consisted of long, exhilarating drives on dirt roads over the prairie and through the badlands punctuated by occasional calls on ranchers and farms. I bought a straw hat, and a pair of knee-high boots to deflect rattlesnakes. I traded in my Dodge Daytona for a 4-wheel-drive Jeep. My wife watched all this with poorly feigned enthusiasm,” Raban wrote.
As much as this is a history book, it’s better described as a book on place. The beginning of it is more centered in the past, while the latter half looks at sort of the current affairs at the time. While interesting, 23 years after publication, the book comes off as rather unfocused at times. You wonder why the Unabomber or the Waco Siege was brought up, when “Bad Land” is meant to focus on homesteaders and the terrain that housed their hopes, until you see the publication date of 1997, and it makes a lot more sense.
That works as both a strength and weakness for this book. At times, it feels much less a definitive history and more of a book based on what Raban is interested in or wants to talk about. I should say it never makes such a claim to be a definitive history, but when the book claims in its dust jacket that Raban in his recreation “ . . . strips away the myth — while preserving the romance — that has shrouded our understanding” of the badlands, it seems frivolous to include a passage to include a passage about the author’s chilly walk back to a hotel in Missoula.
However, his own interests make the book stand out, and the writing is phenomenal while he does so. While it may not be the history book that the genre itself describes it as, it provides a portrait of that romance that so many initially found with the badlands, and that some are still finding today. For that reason, while I may personally not be the biggest history reader, the book is one I recommend if you want to take yourself through more of the sentiments and the journey of what homesteading was like for so many.
August 19, 2018
The title of this book is not to be confused with the national park in South Dakota. Nor with the Bruce Springsteen song. Read it literally: bad land.
I read this book as I was flying into Bozeman for a week's vacation in Montana. It occurred to me as I looked out at what looked like anything but bad land that Montana is America. Or at least one vision of it. It is the setting for a classic American narrative. European immigrant leaves the city and heads west, encouraged by the Homestead Act, offering him and his family their own plot of land. After making the arduous trip, they build their home, plow the land and settle into a life of self-sufficiency and freedom in the open spaces.
Bad land is the dark side of that narrative. “Government and big business had worked hand in glove to stiff the homesteaders. They had spun a merry tale of the New Eden, and put it across with the insidious techniques of 20th century mass advertising. It was a classic con man’s pitch.”
In 1909 and 1910 the Milwaukee Road is seeking to build a customer base on their rail lines through Eastern Montana. They find some pseudo-scientists who suggest their dry farming techniques will produce in an environment that is characterized by bitter cold and lacking in both rain and top soil. The government is happy to give away this dust land at 160 acres per slice. The banks do their part by offering up cheap credit to buy farm equipment, sinking the homesteader in debt that they have little chance of paying off. (Something like the mortgages 100 years later.)
Raban tells this story as he revisits Eastern Montana in 1995. He finds abandoned homes, ghost towns and “men (who) appeared to have stepped off the set of a period western.” Is it any wonder that this deeply conservative part of the country continues to have a profound mistrust of government. That despite, as the author point out, that many were bailed out by the New Deal policies of a Democratic president.
The author ends his story by following the trail further west that was taken by many of the failed homesteaders. He makes a stopover in Lincoln, Mont., home of the Unabomber. He buys a t-shirt. All in all, this is an interesting story about a part of Montana that tourists like myself rarely get to see. The prairie, the pioneering, the deception and the failure are all uniquely American in Bad Land.
I read this book as I was flying into Bozeman for a week's vacation in Montana. It occurred to me as I looked out at what looked like anything but bad land that Montana is America. Or at least one vision of it. It is the setting for a classic American narrative. European immigrant leaves the city and heads west, encouraged by the Homestead Act, offering him and his family their own plot of land. After making the arduous trip, they build their home, plow the land and settle into a life of self-sufficiency and freedom in the open spaces.
Bad land is the dark side of that narrative. “Government and big business had worked hand in glove to stiff the homesteaders. They had spun a merry tale of the New Eden, and put it across with the insidious techniques of 20th century mass advertising. It was a classic con man’s pitch.”
In 1909 and 1910 the Milwaukee Road is seeking to build a customer base on their rail lines through Eastern Montana. They find some pseudo-scientists who suggest their dry farming techniques will produce in an environment that is characterized by bitter cold and lacking in both rain and top soil. The government is happy to give away this dust land at 160 acres per slice. The banks do their part by offering up cheap credit to buy farm equipment, sinking the homesteader in debt that they have little chance of paying off. (Something like the mortgages 100 years later.)
Raban tells this story as he revisits Eastern Montana in 1995. He finds abandoned homes, ghost towns and “men (who) appeared to have stepped off the set of a period western.” Is it any wonder that this deeply conservative part of the country continues to have a profound mistrust of government. That despite, as the author point out, that many were bailed out by the New Deal policies of a Democratic president.
The author ends his story by following the trail further west that was taken by many of the failed homesteaders. He makes a stopover in Lincoln, Mont., home of the Unabomber. He buys a t-shirt. All in all, this is an interesting story about a part of Montana that tourists like myself rarely get to see. The prairie, the pioneering, the deception and the failure are all uniquely American in Bad Land.
March 29, 2015
I had never heard of Raban....I am appropiately chagrined. This book defies categorization and I was simultaneously stunned and enthralled as I experienced Raban's astounding prose...a poetic travelogue accross times and territories that is at once,a historical, sociological, political, philisophical, theological, exploration of the zeigtist of America at the turn of the century. Raban put me "there"..."there" being a mosaic of physical landscape(on the treeless, semi-arid plains of Eastern Montana), psychic landscape(in the hearts and minds of the homesteaders, some, desperate seekers of a promised land, some, deluded dreamers, some, naive immigrants,some, scam artists, some, cultured escapees from stratified English society, all...somehow mislead by their own agonizing hunger for a better life), and historical/cultural landscape (America as it embraced the immigrant, the industrial and scientific age, and saw the last of the "open " territory seized by homesteaders beguiled by glossy promises in railroad propaganda...huckstered, so to speak.
I was literally transported back in time to these territories...the history came vibrantly, lucidly, alive for me in a way I've never really experienced before (and I've read some pretty good history and historical fiction in my day.)... All because of Raban's elixir of magical prose and intuitive insight. I will definitely seek out more of Raban's prose. With all these superlatives...why not five stars? I'm thinking that there are many people that don't find much use for either history or nostalgia...people that might come to this book with the idea that it is supposed to be a travelogue and not be so affected to the core the way I was in reading it...it is more a meditation evoked by place, rather than a surface level exploration of a place... that somehow resonates with the lonesome part of my soul as an older man, looking back at life and loss.... I'm a homesteader in my own way... seduced by the same siren call of all those deluded dreamers who wandered off in search of some illusive promised land/life....the faint trail of their wandering steps only discerned by a keen eye that sees the story in the ghostown that marks our passing ...that is what Raban managed to capture with mere 'words'.
I was literally transported back in time to these territories...the history came vibrantly, lucidly, alive for me in a way I've never really experienced before (and I've read some pretty good history and historical fiction in my day.)... All because of Raban's elixir of magical prose and intuitive insight. I will definitely seek out more of Raban's prose. With all these superlatives...why not five stars? I'm thinking that there are many people that don't find much use for either history or nostalgia...people that might come to this book with the idea that it is supposed to be a travelogue and not be so affected to the core the way I was in reading it...it is more a meditation evoked by place, rather than a surface level exploration of a place... that somehow resonates with the lonesome part of my soul as an older man, looking back at life and loss.... I'm a homesteader in my own way... seduced by the same siren call of all those deluded dreamers who wandered off in search of some illusive promised land/life....the faint trail of their wandering steps only discerned by a keen eye that sees the story in the ghostown that marks our passing ...that is what Raban managed to capture with mere 'words'.
January 1, 2019
Interesting story, sometimes slow, about the plight of a group of Americans that were "conned" into moving to Montana in the early 1900s. The U.S. government sent out pamphlets about great farming land and opportunities available in the area. The author follows several families that settled in the area and suffered, some sticking it out after several years, some moving on after losing everything.
September 21, 2018
Wanted to like, tried hard, the book was drier than the Montana plains.
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November 15, 2020Johnathan Raban writes with such a descriptive presence. He describes the land and the people of eastern Montana in such a manner that you actually feel there joy and sorrow.
September 4, 2016
Raban has turned in a tour de force narrative of immigrants to the high plains of Montana and North Dakota in the first decades of the twentieth century. With his idiosyncratic weave of historical research, personal memoir, travelogue and fictionalized imaginings, he evokes a compelling narrative of that time and place. I read the book right after reading Richard Ford's Canada (overlapping geographically, but 50 years later), and just as I was traveling to Wyoming and South Dakota - a great synergy of reading and travel. Raban's book is really going to stick with me, and in fact I already find that it resonates beyond its nominal subjects.
That said, his idiosyncratic, cross-genre style can lead to some off-key notes. While I would just read past the occasional off-key note in the bulk of the book (because I'd be immediately swept up by the rest of the narrative), I have to recommend completely skipping the last 2 chapters of the book. In these last 60 pages, he literally and figuratively loses track of the immigrants he's been following and gets mired in inexplicable (and not especially insightful) digressions into survivalists, and Ted Kaczynski, and other misc subjects. It was really unfortunate that he ended such a strong book with such a dud of a conclusion.
Note re the Kindle edition: it's the sloppiest Kindle edition I've ever read. It must have been done by scan / OCR of a hard copy and there are easily 100+ typos in the book, e.g. "Unele Sam" and "trairts" (for "trains"), etc. Every time I hit one of these it disrupts the flow of the book. Given that they charge full Kindle rate for the book, it's appalling that they didn't hire a couple proof readers for the Kindle edition. (This doesn't affect my star rating, but it bears a mention for anyone debating paperback vs kindle.)
That said, his idiosyncratic, cross-genre style can lead to some off-key notes. While I would just read past the occasional off-key note in the bulk of the book (because I'd be immediately swept up by the rest of the narrative), I have to recommend completely skipping the last 2 chapters of the book. In these last 60 pages, he literally and figuratively loses track of the immigrants he's been following and gets mired in inexplicable (and not especially insightful) digressions into survivalists, and Ted Kaczynski, and other misc subjects. It was really unfortunate that he ended such a strong book with such a dud of a conclusion.
Note re the Kindle edition: it's the sloppiest Kindle edition I've ever read. It must have been done by scan / OCR of a hard copy and there are easily 100+ typos in the book, e.g. "Unele Sam" and "trairts" (for "trains"), etc. Every time I hit one of these it disrupts the flow of the book. Given that they charge full Kindle rate for the book, it's appalling that they didn't hire a couple proof readers for the Kindle edition. (This doesn't affect my star rating, but it bears a mention for anyone debating paperback vs kindle.)
April 17, 2018
The author travels through eastern Montana where in 1909 homesteaders could stake claims on 320-acre tracts of land. The railroads made unrealistic claims about how easy it would be to farm the land and many people, including numerous immigrants, made the attempt. Most failed despite a popular publication of the day by Hardy Webster Campbell that promoted the idea of "dry land farming." There was also a popular belief of the day that "rain follows the plough." There was some initial success of the farmers but there was such a thin layer of good topsoil that the soil was soon exhausted and dustbowl conditions followed.
Raban runs into many interesting characters and spends time in Ismay which changed its name to Joe, Montana in hopes of attracting tourists.
The final segment of the books talks about the Unabomber and survivalists who have picked rural Montana as a place to live out their lifestyle. Their resentment of the federal government is partly based on the way that the homesteaders were deceived by the government.
Raban runs into many interesting characters and spends time in Ismay which changed its name to Joe, Montana in hopes of attracting tourists.
The final segment of the books talks about the Unabomber and survivalists who have picked rural Montana as a place to live out their lifestyle. Their resentment of the federal government is partly based on the way that the homesteaders were deceived by the government.
July 17, 2013
Well-researched and nicely told, BAD LAND looks at the great western migration that took place at the turn of the century. The plot is straightforward: city dwellers move to homestead plots in Montana, discover bad soil and terrible weather, ultimately fail miserably, and migrate further westward. The story is in the details. The novice farmers were lured by a government program which was instigated by the railroad industry, which needed people and an agri-industry to fuel its expansion west. The innovative ways in which the farmers tried to conquer the hostile environment is nothing short of amazing. Read about these hardy pioneers and you will appreciate the myriad of little things that make our lives safe, comfortable and secure.
February 14, 2017
Wonderful history of the settling of Montana and North Dakota. Rabin takes us back to the early 1900's by trekking through the rough desert landscape that so many people thought they could transform into the next Garden of Eden. He delves into the written diaries of the settlers and the memories of the few remaining descendants that live there to produce an outstanding account of the broken hopes and dreams of the rugged folks who tried to survive. If the weather didn't drive the people away, then it was the swarms of grasshoppers, or the crushing financial cost. My family settled in North Dakota, and now I understand why they ended up leaving. Raban's storytelling is very engaging and his humor quite dry, making this book worth 5 stars.
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July 28, 2008Raban makes riveting the bleak story of the settling of Eastern Montana in the late 19th century. It is well-organized, skillfully written, and based on sources like letters, diaries, and contemporary newspaper stories. It's a fascinating blend of travel narrative, history, and journalism. No wonder in 1996 it won prestigious prizes such as the National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction and the NYT Editors' Choice for Book of the Year. Anybody interested in pioneer or frontier life in or the history of the American West, especially in the 20th century, will get a lot out of this book.
August 17, 2011
Author Jonathan Raban's opening chapter eloquently drew me into semi-arid Eastern Montana. The book chronicles how just after the turn of the century the promise of free land from the government and deceptive publicity campaigns drew in emigrants. Their stories are amazing, how they grew into communities. The book honestly tells their stories of hardship, weather and ultimately failure. Through out the book Raban weaves is own personal accounts with the surviving family members. He is an outsider compassionately telling their story.
January 3, 2012
I would recommend this book to anyone who has any interest in the Western US.
I have driven through part of Wyoming a couple of times and remember vividly the feeling that my car was not moving at all because of the space and lack of landmarks. Mr. Raban spends time discussing this phenomenon in the beginning of his book, which, at that point, I was enjoying. By the midpoint of his book, I felt regret every time I had to put it down to do something else. He does a great job weaving history, geography, government, and the present together.
I have driven through part of Wyoming a couple of times and remember vividly the feeling that my car was not moving at all because of the space and lack of landmarks. Mr. Raban spends time discussing this phenomenon in the beginning of his book, which, at that point, I was enjoying. By the midpoint of his book, I felt regret every time I had to put it down to do something else. He does a great job weaving history, geography, government, and the present together.
October 29, 2012
This is the second time reading this book and it was well worth it. I really enjoyed the picture painted by Raban of the Montana life and landscape back at the beginning of the last century. For anyone who enjoys picture-language together with factual descriptions, then this would suit you. If you want a story with a plot, then you may not wish to take this book on. By reading this, you will learn a lot about a way of life which is quite unknown to people living in the UK (but may well be understood by those who live in the USA). I would recommend this.
February 2, 2015
This book isn't what I expected, but I loved it anyway. It describes in a very real way why someone would attempt to move to a flat dry land (Montana) and try farming in 1901. My great grandfather set out to do just that, not in Montana but in northern North Dakota. This book put the family stories I grew up with in historical context and gave me an insight and respect for what my great grandparents accomplished. It is a very American story. Now I am off to look at historical rainfall amounts for Bottineau North Dakota, I just have to know how it compares.
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