Description:This is a pictorial history of Montana. Its purpose, however, is to inform—not to entertain, not to illustrate, not to decorate the polished surface of the living room coffee table, although it may do all of that. It is not, then, simply a picture book. Its goal is to impart information, to render that thin, rich stratum of the his¬ torical past in Montana more textured, more meaningful, and more real. We are historians, not photographers, and this volume, because of our backgrounds, has received a different treatment than that of a more usual photographic essay.**