Annie Gilbert Coleman. Ski Style: Sport and Culture in the Rockies. (CultureAmerica.) Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. 2004. Pp. xii, 299. $29.95

Annie Gilbert Coleman's imaginative and lively history of skiing in the Rocky Mountains is a model of a good monograph. At the most basic level, Coleman narrates a chronological story, doing an excellent job of explaining how skiing came to Colorado, how it grew and became a major industry, and the changes it wrought in the state. The reader learns that skiing in the United States began not as recreation but as work. At one time, the only way to get into or out of some places during a Colorado winter was on skis, turning mailmen, workmen, and midwives into skiers. During the late nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century it was Scandinavian immigrants who were responsible for introducing skiing as sport to Americans. By the 1930s, expert European skiers—many of working‐class origins—were bringing downhill Alpine skiing to...