In writing this classic history of his home state, K. Ross Toole consciously avoided a systematic presentation of chronological facts. Instead, he wrote a series of roughly chronological essays pointing up the themes that course through the years. The result is a sharply drawn portrait of Montana by one who knew how to interpret the remote and recent past and how to write with great effect. "There is little or nothing moderate about Montana, the fourth-largest state, stretching 650 miles across the northern plains and the Rockies, a region beautiful and grim, parched, windbeaten, lonely under...