The Walking Drum
by Louis L'Amour

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Book Reviews of The Walking Drum

Book Review: The Greatest L'Amour Hero!
Summary: 5 Stars

I have long tried to convince friends that L'Amour is a "frontier" writer, not a "Western" writer, with little avail. That is, most people are aware of his books about the American West, about cowboys, ranchers, settlers and the like. Yet, his work encompasses much more than that. From fen-men to pirates, from early continental settlers to sailors, from the East Coast to the West Coast, from trips to Singapore to trips to Alaska, from crossing Imperial Russia to crossing the whole of Eurasia, L'Amour's characters are always on a frontier somewhere.
And in THE WALKING DRUM, the entire world is frontier. To Kerbouchard, each place he goes, he learns something new, sees things that are exotic to his eyes, considers thinking by wise and venerable individuals, and reconsiders his entire view of the world.

One particularly interesting note is that we see the source of the term "Robber Baron." Far from being a term coined to describe American industrialist, we see Kerbouchard actually battle local nobles and feudal lords who use their power to loot and steal from travelers and traders -- that is, he battles barons who are robbers, or "robber barons." In learning more about the past, we can better understand the present, and seek the future.

As Kerbouchard says, "Yol Bolson!" May there be a road....

Summary of The Walking Drum

Westerns Books

• Books > Subjects > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction