This is not as good a work as it had the potential of being. At 199 pages it is short, made shorter still by small pages with large type.

Bouncing from topic to topic, it is an uncoordinated effort. It appears to have been rushed. There are so many ibids and multiple referrals to the same source material in the bibliography that you begin to wonder just how much work went into the research behind it. I was sorry I purchased it.

I enjoyed "Seduced by the West," though it's a quick read that is more of a lengthy magazine article than really a book.

The books focuses on various efforts to explore and claim the American West including, but not limited to, Lewis & Clark.

The most interesting aspect of the book is the description of various characters, e.g., General James Wilkinson. Wilkinson was supposed to be representing US interests in the ill-defined Louisiana Territories, but he was also apparently being paid by the Spanish. The Spanish, intriguingly, didn't recognize the Louisiana Purchase as their deal to turn Louisiana over to the French had a codicil that it wasn't to be sold to someone else.

I would have preferred the book if it had been more specifically focused on a character like Wilkinson and therefore would have been less of a historical review.

But, within the context of what "Seduced by the West" is, it's an enjoyable read.

I bought this book a few months ago to help prepare me for the ASVAB, and wish I had bought something else now that I'm finishing the book. As another reader stated, there are A LOT of typos, wrong answers, wrong questions, wrong explnations, etc....that will really frustrate the reader. Especially when it comes to the math problems; you'll be left scratching your head time and time and time again trying to figure out how they got an answer to a problem, when it is actually the wrong answer. If you are a bit rusty on math, which most people are, this book might do more harm than good. Although I haven't tried another book, I strongly suggest getting something else.

This book would have earned a higher score had it not been so full of errors. My husband recently purchased this book to help him study for the ASVAB. We chose the Princeton Review one because we thought we could trust the name. There are countless errors in both the explanations of how to take the test as well as the practice tests. In a novel a few typos are harmless, but in a test prep book, it renders it useless.
The format of the book is good. It is divided up into clear sections with practice tests throughout. I hope that the next edition is more thouroughly proof read so that it can be helpful to others.

This book thoroughly and clearly explained everything that I needed to know for the exam. The practice tests let me get used to taking the test under strict time limits. There were a couple of typos but nothing that really detracted from the quality of the instruction. Overall it was very useful.