Book Review: Profiting from the Plains: The Great Northern Railway and Corporate Development of the American West

Authors

Barbara Handy-Marchello, University of North Dakota

Date of this Version

2004

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in Great Plains Quarterly 24:4 (Fall 2004). Copyright © 2005 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Abstract

A former colleague of mine once remarked of James J. Hill, with some emphasis, that he was a "great man!" This statement seems subject to some qualifications, which my colleague did not provide, but which Claire Strom offers in Profiting from the Plains. Hill, the "empire builder," was a great man with many shortcomings, not the least of which was his conception of himself as a great man.