A Review From the History Expert at Borders:

In The Worst Hard Time, Tim Egan set a new standard for the disaster book narrative. The combination of analysis and brilliant language, not to mention an important but overlooked topic, ultimately led to the National Book Award. The Big Burn is even better. Driven by the same elements that launched The Worst Hard Time, Egan has taken his narrative up a notch by allowing character to drive the story as much as the elements. The breadth of characters in this story is wide, yet all are accessible and are more sharpened than the wind-whipped farmers on the Plains in the Depression. Add to this a narrative as fluid as the fire in the story and we have the makings of another award winner. The opening sentence in the prologue is one of the finest I've ever read and gives you an innate sense of what's to come:

"Here now came the fire down from the Bitterroot Mountains and showered embers and forest shrapnel onto the town that was supposed to be protected by all those men with faraway accents and empty stomachs."

The beauty of The Big Burn is that it works on so many levels. First off, it's just a great story. Set amidst the Bitterroot Mountains in 1910 America, the narrative includes a host of compelling characters from the new and somewhat naïve Forest Rangers to Timber barons, corrupt congressmen and a dedicated contingent of Progressive politicians. Add to this mix an immigrant workforce, a platoon of Buffalo Soldiers and a hardass citizenry bent on scratching out a living in America's last frontier and you have a combustible collection of characters.

Secondly, The Big Burn has several parallels to the present. This is the birth of the conservation movement and ultimately leads to the founding and securing of the National Park system and the origin of the Green Movement today. The political and class struggles within the story aren't all that different from today—lobbyist colluding with pliable politicians to exploit the lower strata of the poor and disadvantaged. Immigration and race also play a huge role in The Big Burn. It was immigrant laborers and black soldiers who sacrificed themselves for a country that did not count them. The country has come a long way 100 years later, but the tension is still present.

Bringing this all together is the beauty of Egan's voice and a novel like plot structure that will keep you flipping the pages. A journalist and novelist before turning to history, Egan's descriptive power is potent. I could note numerous examples where I had to reread a sentence or paragraph just for the sound of it or to finesse the picture in my head forged by the words. The fire almost leaps off the page. History purists might take issue with this style, but I find it incredibly evocative—and that's saying something for a history book.

There is more, especially the fates of key rangers and forest fire fighters who gave it all and then were quickly forgotten as The Big Burn burned out. There's a terrific Teddy Roosevelt: Lorax-like, larger than life and the driving force behind the entire story. Little known Gifford Pinchot, founder of the Forest Rangers, will be remembered if not for his dedication to the Green World than for his eccentric mind. An incompetent and overweight President Taft compounds the problems through his indecisiveness. John Muir appears early in the book and is given due credit for his insistence that Roosevelt and Pinchot do something to save the trees. Through all this is a fire almost beyond imagination—almost. Mr. Egan saves The Big Burn from a long list of forgotten tragedies.
John Tewsley
History Buyer for Borders