The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 79, July 1975 - April, 1976 Page: 251

Book Reviews

disagree on certain objectives and methods. In some places propaganda
from such organizations as the National Audubon Society and the Sierra
Club is presented as if it were proven fact. Also, the average reader might
well conclude that the whooping crane and other rare Texas birds (with
the exception of the Attwater prairie chicken) have been protected almost
exclusively by out-of-state efforts, and that is not true. William B. Davis of
Texas A&M, Edward C. Fritz, Roy Bedichek, Herbert Mewhenney, Clar-
ence Cottam, and the Robert H. Welder family are good examples of
Texans worth mentioning.
The book is readable and concise, giving a factual picture of the struggle
to save American and Texas birdlife. A most useful appendix lists the do's
and don't's of herbicide and pesticide use.
Texas A&M University VICTOR H. TREAT
History of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. By Keith L. Bryant,
Jr. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1975. Pp. 398. Illustra-
tions, maps, photographs, notes, index. $12.95).
On October 30, I868-the day construction began on the Atchison, To-
peka & Santa Fe Railway-Colonel Cyrus K. Holliday breezily predicted
that it would become a giant railroad stretching westward and southward
from Kansas. There were considerable snickers among those who heard
Holliday's boast on that misty day of yesteryear. By 1975 all of his dreams
-and more-had come to fruition. Today the Santa Fe company oper-
ates some I2,oo000 miles of railroad linking Lake Michigan and San Fran-
cisco Bay, Matagorda, Texas and Superior, Nebraska. Moreover, it is one
of the largest and most prosperous of the nation's rail carriers.
A number of talented scholars and writers have been attracted to the
history of the AT&SF. The latest of these is Keith L. Bryant, Jr., professor
of history at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. His History of the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway is the third volume in Macmillan's
Railroads of America series. The book is, in large measure, a corporate
study; entrepreneurial and managerial decisionmaking processes thus re-
ceive intensive treatment. Those who are offended by such "history from
the top down" will find relief, however, in strong chapters such as "Fred
Harvey and His Girls," "The Coming of the Diesel," and "The Chiefs and
Chico." Bryant's treatment of men and events is essentially evenhanded, and
he has very skillfully related the history of the Santa Fe to that of the South-
west and the nation itself. The attending maps are adequate in number and
quality, but the illustrations are generally mundane. More importantly, the

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