Westward Across the Divide

Will Bagley, today’s most knowledgeable historian of the overland trails experience, has focused his narrative expertise on the most important point on those routes: South Pass. This quickly paced, extensively researched book, South Pass: Gateway to a Continent (University of Oklahoma Press, $29.95) takes readers across the Rocky Mountain pass from the days of early Indian use and travel, to the Robert Stuart expedition of 1812 that identified the logical route for westward expansion. Place