Boonesborough; Its founding, pioneer struggles, Indian experiences, Transylvania days, and revolutionary annals .—With full historical notes and appendix. By George W. Ranck , Member of the Filson Club. Illustrated. Louisville: John P. Morton &Company. 1901. Pp. xi+286.

This is No. 16 of the valuable series that the Filson Club is publishing. Though in paper covers, the volume has, in all its appointments, the air of good taste and abundant means. One especially attractive feature is the well chosen list of half-tone illustrations. The narrative is preceded by an appreciative introduction by Col. R. T. Durrett, president of the club. The subject with which Mr. Ranck has to deal is one full of inspiration for those who understand and sympathize with the pioneer work by which the West was really won—an inspiration which he has not failed, in a very marked degree, to catch. It is not easy to get the true perspective of our history. It may be that men like Daniel Boone, or even George Rogers Clark, did not have the depth of insight or conscious largeness of purpose that appears in the work of Washington or Madison or Hamilton, and that they builded wiser than they knew; but what if Great Britain had emerged from the struggle of the Revolution with its tenacious grasp still fixed on the West—the land where, as Woodrow Wilson shows, the true type of Americanism has developed? What would the United States have been? Let the historian that gives a hundred pages to the war with Great Britain and passes over with brief and careless mention the work of Boone and Clark justify himself if he can. The reviewer is of the opinion that such historians can learn much worth their knowing from the publications of the Filson Club, and especially from this number, which deals with the central feature in the making of Kentucky.

The appendix covers 118 pages, and includes a list of documents for which the serious student of Western history will be especially grateful. When history like this which Mr. Ranck has had to write shall be presented in the same scientific and intelligent manner, its importance and interest, falsely considered by some only local, will take on their true national aspect.

How to cite:
"Boonesborough; Its founding, pioneer struggles, Indian experiences, Transylvania days, and revolutionary annals", Volume 005, Number 1, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 62 - 63. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v005/n1/review_18.html
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