Review: Delaware Before the Railroads: A Diamond Among the States by Dave Tabler

Review: Delaware Before the Railroads: A Diamond Among the States by Dave Tabler

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So, I am going to start this review off with a confession: geography was one of my most difficult subjects in grade school and, before diving into this book, I knew next to nothing about the state of Delaware. This means I ended up going into Dave Tabler’s work completely blind and ignorant of the rich history that is part of this state.

A lot of the information Tabler presents is rather interesting, and I can see that he is passionate about the subject through how he writes and the creative use of the photographs. While I admit I remember the photographs more than the writing, it is clear how they are both used in concert to talk about the subject.

With that said, let’s dive a bit deeper. Before I start, I must note that, since this work is not a fictional narrative, I will be forgoing both the summary and character sections for this review and replacing them with a research section. This review may end up being shorter than usual as a result. Let’s get started!

Thoughts

I admit, I don’t know much about history as a subject. It is not what I studied in college and it has been years since I picked up a nonfictional historical text. The last time I picked up anything remotely related to history, I was picking up a historical fiction novel that was largely dealing with a subject I knew a lot about.

I am saying this to admit I had a lot to learn and discover about the subject matter Tabler focuses on. And the story he presents through the photographic evidence is one of the strongest points of this book. However, at the same time, I did see some issues with the organization of the information. I’ll explain further in the structure section.

Research

For the most part, the research presented here is easy to comprehend. I find the way Tabler uses the photographs intriguing. One trick I was impressed by was when one photograph is presented and given a caption that guides the reader’s eye to the next photograph on the same page, showing how the two images are connected. As I said earlier, keeping the reader’s engagement is vital in any work, and that is exactly what connecting the photographs did for me – I wanted to see more after realizing their connections.

The information in this book is well-researched and documented clearly. The photographs function as evidence of whatever is being discussed, showing that Tabler did his homework in backing up his claims. This is then used to back up claims both next to the evidence and in the back of the book, which is a great way to guide the reader through the work being presented!

Structure

In looking at that structure, I want to solely focus on how the text melds with the photographs. And I will be honest in admitting that I see issues with how some of the text is formatted in this book. Most of the time, Tabler has blocks of text next to (or sometimes directly printed on) photographs. However, the issue I have comes from those blocks that show a tag that says, “More.” These tags are intended to lead the reader to the back of the book where additional information about the photographs is presented.

That said, there is nothing that labels which piece of information corresponds with each image. This means that I constantly had to mark the page of the original photograph, go to the back, and guess which block of text corresponded with what I just saw because there wasn’t enough to match them up. I do understand that there is not enough space for all the text on the original page, but the back section needs to be better organized for the reader to be able to seamlessly follow it. To fix this, I would suggest labeling each photograph with a number on the “More” tag and then using that corresponding number in the back to guide the reader’s eye to what needs to be looked at for fuller context. This way, the reader knows exactly where to look in that back section.

Writing

Tabler’s writing is straightforward and easy to comprehend. He takes on a conversational tone in discussing the history of the state, making it easy to get behind what is being discussed, guiding the reader through the history almost seamlessly. There are no issues with flow or consistency in the way this story is told.

However, I do see a drawback that is not related to the flow of the text. Basically, Tabler’s writing can come across as somewhat dry in places. I remember feeling that the writing in the back of the book is most guilty of this, because that was where I felt my interest started to wane. There needs to be something more to keep the reader engaged with what is being presented. Given the way the text is melded together at the front of the book and how well that is presented, I am wondering if another, smaller image next to the texts in the back would help. Perhaps a smaller image of what the text pertains to could help keep up engagement, because then there is no risk of being distracted by trying to find the relevant information. It would require that the back section’s text blocks be a little more spaced out, but it may be worth it to help the reader along.

Conclusion

I know this review is shorter than normal, but I do believe I have covered everything. While something like this isn’t my usual topic of discussion, I admit that I mostly enjoy what Tabler has presented. While there are some issues with organization, I don’t think that should steer you away from this if you want to know more about the state of Delaware. Tabler’s work presents a very interesting history that I would recommend looking into. Because of this, I am awarding the book three stars.