Search - Centennial

I chose this book because I have decided to take a literary tour of the United States. Having been to the south with Eudora Welty and the Optimist's Daughter, I decided to go West. And I couldn't have chosen a better guide than Michener (whom I have never read before.) I was absolutely fascinated by the details and historical information - beginning way back some billion years ago when the cooling earth began to shape itself into what is now known as Colorado. Each chapter of this book was like reading a separate novel except that they all fit together in one sweeping progression that took me from the age of the dinosaurs right on through to the present time. I grew attached to all of the characters - even the beavers, the horses and the buffalo but especially the people - the Indians, the settlers, the fur traders, the cattle Ranchers, cowbows, hunters, farmers, even the scoundrels, swindlers and politicians - because they were so carefully portrayed. But this wasn't primarily an epic story about people and families (although it was fun watching them or their descendants show up from one era to the next)It was an epic story about the west itself and what happened there over the thousands and thousands of years that have made it what it is. What a trip!