The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 55, July 1951 - April, 1952 Page: 524

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

1950). De Golyer places the farthest point south which Coronado
reached as fifteen miles southeast of Lubbock, and he located
Cona on the Blanco in the vicinity of Plainview. So the contro-
versy is not yet settled.
The points where opinion may still differ are minor when
viewed against the stupendous framework of the whole under-
taking. Even De Golyer says that the "book is the most inclusive
and authoritative consideration of the subject yet published, and
is likely to remain so for years to come."
This account is written in a style that is pithy, vivid, and
graphic, and makes for fascinating reading by the layman. Occa-
sional parallels of trends, circumstances, and the vicissitudes of
human nature in Coronado's day, with those of our times, cause
us to be more understanding and sympathetic with Coronado
and his followers both as to their dreams and their disappoint-
ments. In all, the book is scholarly, exhaustive, and tremendously
interesting.
W. C. HOLDEN
Texas Technological College
Edmund Pendleton Gaines: Frontier General. By James W. Sil-
ver. Baton Rouge (The Louisiana State University Press),
1949. Pp. xxi+291. Illustrations, maps, and index. $4.50.
Biography as a medium of expression justifies itself upon one
of three counts: it presents a figure worthy of study per se, it
portrays a period of history by relating its protagonist to his
times, or it is so well written that it redeems the lack of a great
subject or a significant era. James Silver has chosen "to present
through the medium of a colorful individual's life a cross section
of expanding frontier America." This choice of objective dem-
onstrates a nice sense of relative proportion on the part of the
author, for save to the genealogist or antiquarian, Edmund Pen-
dleton Gaines was not a figure of sufficiently great interest or
achievement to attract wide interest. Nor does the writer redeem
the obscurity of his subject by a brilliant style; the narrative is
rather of pedestrian quality-it gets the reader on at the cost of
some effort.
But with allowances for these limitations the book is com-

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