The definitive biography on Meriwether Lewis by Thomas C. Danisi and John C. Jackson now in paperback for the first time.October 11, 2009 marks the bicentennial of Meriwether Lewis's death. As the leader of the Lewis and Clark expedition, an epic exploration of uncharted territory west of the Mississippi, Lewis has been the subject of several biographies, yet much of the published information is unreliable. A number of myths surrounding his life and death persist. Now independent s...

Jemmy Jock Bird, the son of a Cree woman and an English trader employed by the Hudson's Bay Company, has become part of the mythology of the mountain man era. In this creative non-fiction account, Jackson meticulously reconstructs the life of this intriguing individual who was caught between opposing sides of a dual Métis heritage.Closely identified with the Cree and the Peigan, Bird's trading activities and undercover work as a "confidential servant" of the Hudson's Bay Company du...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Band of Brothers and D-Day, the definitive book on Lewis and Clark’s exploration of the Louisiana Purchase, the most momentous expedition in American history and one of the great adventure stories of all time.In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a voyage up the Missouri River to the Rockies, over the mountains, down the Columbia ...

*Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award**A New York Times Notable Book**Winner of the Texas Book Award and the Oklahoma Book Award*This New York Times bestseller and stunning historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West “is nothing short of a revela...

**Winner of the 2021 Bancroft Prize and the 2021 Ridenhour Book PrizeFinalist for the 2020 National Book Award for NonfictionNamed a Top Ten Best Book of 2020 by the Washington Post and Publishers Weekly and a New York Times Critics' Top Book of 2020A masterful and unsettling history of “Indian Removal,” the forced migration of Native Americans across the Mississippi River in the 1830s and the state-sponsored theft of their lands.**I...

Dee Brown’s powerful and unforgettable classic that awakened the world to the nineteenth-century decimation of American Indian tribesFirst published in 1970, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee generated shockwaves with its frank and heartbreaking depiction of the systematic annihilation of American Indian tribes across the western frontier. In this nonfiction account, Dee Brown focuses on the betrayals, battles, and massacres suffered by American Indians betwee...

"William C. Davis's Three Roads to the Alamo is far and away the best account of the Alamo I have ever read. The portraits of Crockett, Bowie, and Travis are brilliantly sketched in a fast-moving story that keeps the reader riveted to the very last word." — Stephen B. OatesThree Roads to the Alamois the definitive book about the lives of David Crockett, James Bowie and William Barret Travis—the legendary frontiersmen and fighters who met their des...

The West was a lawless domain when Jerry Potts was born into the Upper Missouri fur trade in 1838. The son of a Scottish father and a Blood mother, he was given the name Bear Child by his Blood tribe for his bravery and tenacity while he was still a teen. In 1874, when the North West Mounted Police first marched west and sat lost and starving near the Canada-U.S. border, it was Potts who led them to shelter. Over the next 22 years he played a critical role in the peaceful settlement of the...

"Combines adventure, mystery, and tragedy . . . a 'Who's Who' of explorers who opened the pathway for an ocean-to-ocean America." — St. Joseph News-Press (Missouri)The story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition has been told many times. But what became of the thirty-three members of the Corps of Discovery once the expedition was over?The expedition ended in 1806, and the final member of the corps passed away in 1870. In the intervening decades, member...

Legends cloud the life of Crazy Horse, a seminal figure in American history but an enigma even to his own people in his own day. This superb biography looks back across more than 120 years at the life and death of this great Sioux warrior who became a reluctant leader at the Battle of Little Bighorn. With his uncanny gift for understanding the human psyche, Larry McMurtry animates the character of this remarkable figure, whose betrayal by white representatives of the U.S. government was a ...

The surprising story of how Thomas Jefferson commanded an unrivaled age of American exploration—and in presiding over that era of discovery, forged a great nation.At the dawn of the nineteenth century, as Britain, France, Spain, and the United States all jockeyed for control of the vast expanses west of the Mississippi River, the stakes for American expansion were incalculably high. Even after the American purchase of the Louisiana Territory, Spain still coveted th...

Surveyor, cartographer, fur trader, adventurer, naturalist and entrepreneur, David Thompson is now recognized as one of the greatest explorers and geographers of all time. By 1812, he had surveyed almost four million square kilometres of the North American wilderness and become the first European to navigate the entire length of the Columbia River. This compelling biography draws from Thompson's detailed accounts of his gruelling voyages and follows him from his apprenticeship with the Hud...