Zack’s Reviews > A Newer World: Kit Carson, John C. Frémont, and The Claiming of The American West > Status Update

He had six great pages! Fremont straight up massacred a native village because white settlers asked him to. Author did a great treatment of trying to figure out who those villagers were. He cited other writers and didn’t shit on them either.

“Fremont is arrogant therefore not reliable.
Carson doesn’t talk much so everything he does say is perfectly reliable.
All other writers on this subject are halfwits for me to make fun of and then do the same things I made fun of them for doing.”

There. Now you don’t have to read this book.

Too much of this book is about what the author feels instead of what he’s found through research. He just did a brief literature survey and, to me, looks a lot like a list of confirmation bias.

At one point he shits on a writer as using “dubious sources,” when he never cites anything.

We’ll see if I finish this!

Yup, this is a rage read. Roberts reminds me of Bill Bryson (a condescending arrogant asshole that belittles others without actually offering much themselves). Author talks about wanting to give the native perspective, but just gives them passing mentions. Talks trash about biographers lack of scholarship and then not cite anything.

Also feels like he wants to be Craig Childs w/o doing the real landscape work.

Oof. Author talks about how he will finally give indigenous people a seat at this storytable and then talks about Fremont being the FIRST PERSON EVER to summit Fremont Peak, which the author describes as a walk-up. I feel it’s safe to assume native people probably summited every walk-up during the thousands of years they have inhabited this continent.

Damnit! I didn’t realize it until it was too late. This is the same asshole that wrote “The Pueblo Revolt.” We’ll see how this goes.