HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas…
Loading...

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West (original 1996; edition 1997)

by Stephen Ambrose

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
7,464781,208 (4.11)136
Biography & Autobiography. History. Nonfiction. HTML: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 River to the Pacific Ocean, and back. Lewis and his partner, Captain William Clark, made the first map of the trans-Mississippi West, provided invaluable scientific data on the flora and fauna of the Louisiana Purchase territory, and established the American claim to Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.

Ambrose has pieced together previously unknown information about weather, terrain, and medical knowledge at the time to provide a vivid backdrop for the expedition. Lewis is supported by a rich variety of colorful characters, first of all Jefferson himself, whose interest in exploring and acquiring the American West went back thirty years. Next comes Clark, a rugged frontiersman whose love for Lewis matched Jefferson's. There are numerous Indian chiefs, and Sacagawea, the Indian girl who accompanied the expedition, along with the French-Indian hunter Drouillard, the great naturalists of Philadelphia, the French and Spanish fur traders of St. Louis, John Quincy Adams, and many more leading political, scientific, and military figures of the turn of the century.

High adventure, high politics, suspense, drama, and diplomacy combine with high romance and personal tragedy to make this outstanding work of scholarship as readable as a novel.
… (more)
Member:jaycpeterson
Title:Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
Authors:Stephen Ambrose
Info:Simon & Schuster (1997), Paperback, 528 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:
Tags:None

Work Information

Undaunted Courage by Stephen E. Ambrose (1996)

Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 136 mentions

English (76)  German (2)  All languages (78)
Showing 1-5 of 76 (next | show all)
Lewis & Clark expedition; good but slow read
  derailer | Jan 25, 2024 |
In 1803 President Jefferson tasked Meriwether Lewis with the planning and execution of an expedition to explore the newly-purchased "Louisiana" territory with the goal of discovering an all-water route from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean. Lewis brought aboard his good friend William Clark as co-Captain, and the two led the Corps of Discovery on a 2-year journey across harsh and unfamiliar terrain and through tribal lands that no person of European ancestry had ever before encountered.

Possibly the most comprehensively researched and accessible narrative of the expedition, this book is chock full from start to finish of fascinating insights into the expedition, geography, native cultures, logistics, flora & fauna, politics of the time, members' personalities, and expectations; as well as challenges related to all of the above. That said, some terminology used and comments by the author haven't exactly aged well, beginning with the statement, "Every American everywhere has benefitted from Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana and his setting in motion the Lewis and Clark Expedition," which reads at best tone-deaf today. Ambrose also comments with doubt about whether Jefferson had relations with his enslaved workforce, which has since been proven genetically. If you can turn a blind eye to these details, as well as get past just how starry-eyed the author is regarding Lewis, this is a very enjoyable and educational read. ( )
  ryner | Jan 17, 2024 |
Whew!! this was on my bookshelf for years and it's finally read. great adventure and history. ( )
  RachelGMB | Dec 27, 2023 |
Audiobook. ( )
  kylecarroll | Dec 25, 2023 |
The fact that the guy is a complete fraud who let his grad students write this, and by "write" I mean, "lift sections whole cloth from other published works," drops the rating a wee bit. ( )
  Moon_Cthulhu | Nov 9, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 76 (next | show all)
- conveyed with passionate enthusiasm by Mr. Ambrose and sprinkled liberally with some of the most famous and vivid passages from the travelers' journals.
 

» Add other authors (2 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Ambrose, Stephen E.primary authorall editionsconfirmed
Smith, CotterNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Whitener, BarrettNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
"Of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness & perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from it's [sic] direction, careful as a father of those committed to his charge, yet steady in the maintenance of order & discipline, intimate with the Indian character, customs & principles, habituated to the hunting life, guarded by exact observation of the vegetables & animals of his own country, against losing tine in the description of objects already possessed, honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding and a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that whatever he should report would be as certain as if seen by ourselves, with all these qualifications as if selected and implanted by nature in one body, for this express purpose, I could have no hesitation in confiding the enterprise to him."

    
—Thomas Jefferson

      
on Meriwether Lewis
Dedication
For Bob Tubbs
First words
From the west-facing window of the room in which Meriwether Lewis was born on August 8, 1774, one could look out at Rockfish Gap, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, an opening to the West that invited exploration.
Quotations
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
ISBNs 0671574434 and 0743508084: abridged audiobook read by Cotter Smith. Do not combine the abridged audiobook with the book since they are not the same work.
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC
Biography & Autobiography. History. Nonfiction. HTML: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 River to the Pacific Ocean, and back. Lewis and his partner, Captain William Clark, made the first map of the trans-Mississippi West, provided invaluable scientific data on the flora and fauna of the Louisiana Purchase territory, and established the American claim to Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.

Ambrose has pieced together previously unknown information about weather, terrain, and medical knowledge at the time to provide a vivid backdrop for the expedition. Lewis is supported by a rich variety of colorful characters, first of all Jefferson himself, whose interest in exploring and acquiring the American West went back thirty years. Next comes Clark, a rugged frontiersman whose love for Lewis matched Jefferson's. There are numerous Indian chiefs, and Sacagawea, the Indian girl who accompanied the expedition, along with the French-Indian hunter Drouillard, the great naturalists of Philadelphia, the French and Spanish fur traders of St. Louis, John Quincy Adams, and many more leading political, scientific, and military figures of the turn of the century.

High adventure, high politics, suspense, drama, and diplomacy combine with high romance and personal tragedy to make this outstanding work of scholarship as readable as a novel.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary
Found no direct water way
But ate dog courageously
Jefferson ate none
(John_Vaughan)

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (4.11)
0.5
1 5
1.5 3
2 22
2.5 10
3 148
3.5 36
4 379
4.5 62
5 327

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 203,238,475 books! | Top bar: Always visible