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For many years, one of my favorite classroom devices in historical archaeology was to ask the students to imagine that they had to make the choice between saving-from some unnamed calamity-all master's theses or all doctoral disser tations in anthropology, but not both. Like good students, they usually looked to their Ph.D. holding professor and chose the dissertations. Much to their surprise, Iwouldrespondthatthetheseswould win withouteventakingtime to ponderthe issue. The issue is clearly one of often naïve and rarely eloquent theses full of good primary data versus sometimes more sophisticated and better written works full of irrelevant theory and meaningless statistics. Perhaps this is an overstate ment of the situation, but it is not too far offthe mark. The University Microfilms International efforts to make the titles of disser tations in North America and the English speaking portions of Europe available through Dissertation Abstracts is commendable. With only one minor exception, dissertations in historical and underwater archaeology in the United States are to be found listed in Dissertation Abstracts and thus are available for purchase.
List of contents
Introduction: Westward Expansion toward Fort Benton, Montana Territory.- The Steamboats Arabia and Bertrand.- Methodology.- Bertrand Box 74.- Bertrand FPC-8.- Bertrand MSC-128.- Bertrand FSC-234.- Arabia Carpenter's Box.- Quantitative Analysis.- Conclusions.
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`This data base on Missouri steamboats is an impressive piece of research and should prove invaluable to those doing research on the Missouri river trade. The writing style of the author allows easy and quick reading of this book. ...historic archaeologists will find the artifact descriptions and figures useful. ...this work will often be cited in the future by archaeologists working on mid-nineteenth century sites.'
North American Archaeologist, 21:4 (2000)
`Anyone interested in frontier society will find this to be a very useful volume. It helps explain the development of the Missouri River route that was vital to western Iowa and other portions of the Midwest.'
The Annals of Iowa, 61:3 (2002)
