"Reading Land of Giants, we can believe that history trod here, that issues existed, that men schemed and dreamed and struggled, and so the present came to be."--A. B. Guthrie Jr., Saturday Review of Literature.
A well-known Western historian, David Lavender is the author of more than twenty books, among them Bent's Fort, One Man's West, and most recently California: A Bicentennial History and Winner Take All: The Trans-Canada Canoe Trail.