| SAMUEL ROTHCHILD, A Jewish Pioneer in the Days of the Old West
By Jack T. Sanders
Keep in mind the saying “You can’t judge a book by its cover” when you pick up Samuel Rothchild’s bio. Plain and simple, the cover gives no hint of the fascinating story within. Jack T. Sanders has researched Rothchild’s life from the mid 1800s to his death in 1930, with the painstaking effort of a well known academic, who for years was on the faculty at the University of Oregon, and known for his studies of ancient Judaism, early Christianity, and the early history of the tortured relations between the two.
Very interesting to me are all the historical facts beyond simply Rothchild that are intertwined in the text. Sanders paints a vivid pictures of the times, the people, the architecture, as well as what Rothchild personally was dealing with in helping to develop the West.
As the back page on the cover says “The American West owes its development not to the righteous lone gun-slingers of western fiction, but rather to settlers like Rothchild, who saw to it that a civil society developed in hundreds of small places.” Photos included.
Well worth the read to give you a broader concept of the mosaic of the West. Anyone traveling the region (mainly Oregon to San Francisco) will be grateful for this extra, in depth information.
Ann Terry Hill
Book available on www.amazon.com September 1st, 2011
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