Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
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Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West description
A biography of Meriwether Lewis that relies heavily on the journals of both Lewis and Clark, this book is also backed up by the author's personal travels along Lewis and Clark's route to the Pacific. Ambrose is not content to simply chronicle the events of the "Corps of Discovery" as the explorers called their ventures. He often pauses to assess the military leadership of Lewis and Clark, how they negotiated with various native peoples and what they reported to Jefferson. Though the expedition failed to find Jefferson's hoped for water route to the Pacific, it fired interest among fur traders and other Americans, changing the face of the West forever. |
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Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
pop history, the britney spears of history
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It upsets me that people like this book or think it has any value. It's completely worthless to Lewis and Clark historiography and is really poorly written. I had a difficult time finishing it.
READ DEVOTO'S EDIT OF THE JOURNALS!
I read DeVoto's edit of the journals first, and it was great. I could have read a thousand more pages, and I might, by getting a copy of the entire journals.
When reading the journals there will be questions that you want answered that DeVoto either did not put in or they were aspects not yet researched at the time DeVoto edit the journals. Things like why people got sick, or background about different tribes, ect. Things that the journsls do not themselves explain but that maybe a doctor or a historain could clear up. This is what Ambrose is supposed to do. And in fact he did a pretty good job of it. The problem is with the rest of the book.
'Courage' can be divided into three separate parts, though the parts switch back and forth frequently throughout the book.
(1)- the details, info, and unanswered questions that you can't get from the journals themselves.
(2)- a brief narrative of lewis's life and the trip
(3)- worthless speculation
(1) is what we are here for, and there is some good stuff here. But lets be honest, this isn't really Ambrose's work. He is building off the work of many other Lewis and Clark scholars, doctors, ect. who have in numerous other works helped explain many of the events of the trip.
(2) Ambrose isn't a great story teller. It's about as exciting and detailed as reading a wikipedia entry. To be fair, I read it right after the journals, so it's hard to compete with the people who actually did it.
(3) I'm not sure why Ambrose would perodically end a chapter or whatever with some worthless hypo about would could of happened if this and this indian killed lewis or he fell of this mountian, or whatever. His random speculations about possible out comes or opinions about behavior sound more like a highschool teacher, a tour guide, or a jr. history enthusiast, than a historian.
And while I'm at it, what kind of book is this anyway? A history, a biography? I'm not sure Ambrose had decided himself, just look at his long apologia at the beginning. He was in two minds when he wrote this book. Half of him wanted to tell the story of the trip to his kids around the camp fire, the other half wanted to narrate the life of Lewis. Both came off half cocked.
So, 1/3 of the book is good stuff, 1/3 is ok, and 1/3 is worthless.
3/3 of the journals are priceless.
Someone needs to take the info that we all wonder about when we read the DeVoto's journals and put it in foot notes of a re'edited version. When that happens Ambroses book will be 3/3 worthless. This is POP HISTORY and it sucks.
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