Alaska
By: James A. Michener.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1988
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 868
Subjects: Alaska -- History -- Fiction.
Description: The high points in the story of Alaska since the American acquisition are brought vividly to life through more than 100 characters, real and fictional. Another told-from-the-beginning-of-time Michener saga, this one featuring Alaska. The book begins a billion years ago. Its first characters are the mastadon and the woolly mammoth, followed by such other settlers as the Eskimos, Athapaskans, and Russians. Vignettes of characters as varied as the Danish navigator Vitus Bering, who explored Alaska for Russia's Peter the Great, and Kendra Scott, the young Colorado teacher who taught the Eskimo children during the recent Prudhoe Bay oil boom, illustrate the colorful history of this vast and exploited land. Early on the book is vintage Michener, but the momentum encounters an Arctic chill midway. Final sections are trite, uneven, and overloaded with stereotypes. Too cumbersome to be called fiction, but Michener fans will demand it anyway.
Notes: The maps are on lining papers.
"Of the first editon ... one thousand copies have been specially bound. These books are signed by the author and numbered 1 to 1000"--Prelim. p. [1]
LC copy, deposited for copyright, is specially bound, but unsigned, unnumbered.