Product Description
Describes the history, geography, people, politics and government, economy, state events and attractions, and social life and customs of Missouri, the state that leads the nation in lead production. ... Read more

Product Description
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize. Across the Wide Missouri tells the compelling story of the climax and decline of the Rocky Mountain fur trade during the 1830s. More than a history, it portrays the mountain fur trade as a way of business and a way of life, vividly illustrating how it shaped the expansion of the American West.Amazon.com Review
Like many U.S. historians, cultural critic Bernard DeVotobelieved that the American character was rooted in the experience ofwestward expansion.Unlike those who championed the civilizing gracesof the agrarian frontier, however, DeVoto drew inspiration from themercenary, imperial designs of the fur trade. Originally published in1947, Across the Wide Missouriis arguably the best known of hisstudies in American history, examining the rise and fall of theU.S. fur dynasties in the 1830s. The book chronicles the competitionbetween John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company and the Rocky MountainFur Company, an "opposition" group of trappers (including Jim Bridgerand Kit Carson) descended from the earlier entrepreneurial activitiesof General William H. Ashley. Devoto specifically narrates the majorexpeditions and the daily experiences of the Western divisions ofthese companies, which scoured the northernmost regions of the RockyMountains for beaver. He contends that, by exploring the recentlycharted Northern plateau, fighting off interlopers, and setting uptrade networks, the loose confederation of trappers, traders, andNative Americans shaped the materialism that typifies modern Americansociety.In his densely detailed description of the company"rendezvous," DeVoto shows how the activities of trading, partying,and resource pooling created a shared experience for competingcultural and economic parties on the frontier. While the centrality ofthe fur trade in the development of the American character may strikesome readers as overemphasized, DeVoto's thesis still carries muchrelevance for modern American studies.--John M. Anderson ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

History the way you've never read it.
I first heard of Bernard DeVoto while reading Wallace Stegner. If Stegner liked him, I thought, he must be worth reading. That turned out to be an understatement. DeVoto may be the greatest historian and man of letters this country has ever produced, and it's hard for me to believe that I came to such a ripe age before reading him. Of his great American trilogy, Across the Wide Missouri was the most enjoyable to me, simply because it tells the story of the Mountain Men, the trappers and fur traders, which I've always found interesting. He writes with the authority and panache of a great scholar, one who has researched his subject completely and relies only on first hand accounts, and transmits the knowledge he has gained as only the best of teachers can. Across the Wide Missouri is an enormous work that I will never forget, it reads like the best potboiler, and along with DeVoto's other works, has added immeasurably to my understanding of American history and my appreciation of great writers.

Densely Detailed Account Energized by a Lively, Robust Voice
Bernard De Voto's meticulously detailed account of the last days of the fur trade reveal the lives of the sometimes inspired, often desperate, original survivors, not the faux survivors we now watch on "reality" TV.Drawing largely from journals and records of the traders -- and noting spots where he doubts their credibility -- De Voto creates a compelling picture of the goings-on between the fur men and various native Plains tribes, a relationship that in many respects confounds our current understanding.It seems it was more varied and complex then we've been led to believe. Sometimes an uneasy friendship and respect prevailed, sometimes murder, but often it seemed both native peoples and fur traders were striving to exploit each other for all they could get. Most particularly he distinguishes between the tribes, their customs and proclivities. Clearly a fur trader's survival often depended on his ability to understand these differences. But De Voto's over-arching story of survival -- and, ultimately, defeat -- involves the brutal competition between the fur companies as each attempts to rule the trade. De Voto's voice is smart, robust, sometimes quite humorous. (Watch for irony.) However, coming to us from an age before the Civil Rights Movement, before the Women's Movement, the author does not share the benefits of our deeper, subtler understanding.That's the bad news.On the good side, he writes without self-censorship, uncurtailed by the obedience contemporary historians must show to the various academic conventions of our era.

Real Mountain Man Book!!!
Living in Colorado, and having hiked and driven the western part of the United States, I think this book is great. It tells the story of Mountain Men and the areas they covered. The adventures they lived, and the skill it took to survive. What legends of the West!

NEEDS WORK
I AGREE W/NAICHE. AUTHOR HAS(HAD) GOOD COMMAND OF SUBJECT MATTER BUT PRESENTS IT IN A MADDENINGLY DISORGANIZED MANNER. POORLY INTRODUCED PERSONAGES & EVENTS SEGUE THROUGH EACH CHAPTER NOT TO BE ADEQUATELY DISCUSSED (IF AT ALL) UNTIL MANY PAGES LATER. I FOUND MYSELF FLIPPING AHEAD & BACK IN FRUSTRATION TRYING TO MAINTAIN CONTINUITY. MR. DeVOTO SEEMS MORE CONCERNED WITH DEMONSTRATING HIS LITERARY WIT THAN CLEARLY PRESENTING HIS SUBJECT MATTER. I FOUND ROBERT UTLEY'S "A LIFE WILD AND PERILOUS" FAR EASIER TO READ & LEARN FROM.

Wagh!
Across the Wide Missouri

Mr. DeVoto has a passion for this subject and a passion for the characters that live in it.

Here are some excerpts from the book:

"There were few delicate feeders in the mountains...The river tribes liked the green, putrid flesh of buffalo drowned while crossing the ice and hauled ashore weeks later, `so ripe, so tender, that very little boiling is required.'They ate the kidneys raw... the white man would eat the liver raw as soon as it was taken;he seasoned it with the gall or sometimes with gunpowder...he had no more tableware than his belt knife - gravy, juices and blood running down his face, forearms and shirt.He wolfed the meat and never reached repletion.Eight pounds a day was standard ration for Hudson Bay employees [but often eat twice that amount]...melted fat was gulped by the pint.Kidney fat could be drunk without limit...Hump and boss boil in a kettle, cracked marrow bones sizzle by the fire...Camp is pitched by a small creek or a rushing mountain river...Here is the winesap air of the high places, the clear, green sky of evening fading to a dark that brings the stars within arm's length, the cottonwoods along the creek rustling in the wind.The smell of meat has brought wolves and coyotes almost to the circle of firelight.They skulk just beyond it; sometimes a spurt of flame will turn will turn their eyes to gold...Horses and mules crop the bunch grass at the end of their lariats or browse on leaves along the creek.The firelight flares and fades in the wind's rhythm on the faces of men in whose minds are the vistas and the annuls of the entire West."


If you are yearning for a dry narrative of the fur trade, this is not your book.This book gives you a feel for the land and a feel for the kinds of men involved in the fur trade.It gives you a feel for the hardships that they faced, the cutthroat business practices of the trade and how instrumental these men were to opening up the west for settlement.He does not sanitize history or historical figures.He presents the good and the bad ofboth the individual fur traders and the various Indian tribes that were most closely linked to the fur trade.

As it turns out, this is not a simple story to tell or to organize into a linear narrative.There were many different characters and crosscurrents cutting through the entire period. He weaves this story together with the sinew provided by the movements of a few of the most important mountain men:Jim Bridger, Tom Fitzpatrick, Joe Meek, Bill and Milton Sublette and Kit Carson.

He runs another colorful thread through the story made of missionaries.These are clearly the most foolish, most spiteful and most disagreeable people in the narrative. Some of them are also the most well-intentioned and tragic characters in the grand story. Of the missionaries' desire to convert the Nez Perce and Flathead Indians to Christianity, he says, "[Nez Perce] were superior Indians, they made no trouble, they liked and admired white men...Their desire for instruction in the mysteries was genuine and paramount, as clean as the desire of these Christians to give them what they wanted.Both desires were simple and altogether hopeless...The Indians receiving instruction were men of the age of polished stone...They tried, bothIndians and whites.There they stood, the seekers and the bearers of truth...the sincerity of these Indians' desire for religious instruction could not be doubted."And yet this first wave of missionaries met with frustration, failure and murder.

But the primary and repeated organizational thread that runs through this story is a fascinating and completely unlikely man named William Drummond Stewart.This man won the respect and deep friendship of all the great mountain men.He was kind, generous and good humored.Captain William Drummond Stewart of the British Army "was in his thirty-seventh year.He was the brother of Sir John Archibald Stewart, eighteenth of Grandtully and sixth baronet, and was next in succession to him...He went through the Hundred days with his regiment and fought at Waterloo."He traveled the prairies and the mountains in comfort, elegance and style.He was as tough, as adventurous and as skillful as any of the mountain men. Yet there was not even a hint of royal superiority about him.

Mr. DeVoto is a magnificent writer.If you are looking for an outstanding overview of the fur trade, this is your book.He also provides fascinating notes in the appendix and an extensive bibliography for those who are interested in further reading.
... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1912.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1916.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

Product Description
Publisher: Rolla, Mo.Publication date: 1921Subjects: English fiction -- BibliographyAmerican fiction -- BibliographyNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Product Description
Rumor has it that a schoolteacher from the East is coming out West to teach school. Three Springer's Ranch cowhands have tried to discourage her from coming by forging letters. But their strategy has failed to overpower the more persuasive love letters from a certain mysterious Frank Owens. No one knows who he is.

When Jane Stacey arrives, everyone is amazed to discover not a middle-aged matron but a very attractive young woman. The Springer's Ranch hands are falling over themselves to impress her, or maybe it's because they've had too much to drink.

Bill Springer is the only one sober enough to take matters in hand and drive her out to the ranch. But the lecherous Beady Jones has his own idea of how the new schoolmarm should be introduced to the West.

Zane Grey's West was a moral battleground, in which his characters are either destroyed due to their inability to change or redeemed by confronting their past. ... Read more

Product Description
Discusses the land and climate, economy, government, and history of the Show-Me State. Includes Internet links to Web sites, source documents, and photographs related to Missouri. ... Read more

Product Description
Publisher: Rolla, Mo.Publication date: 1916Subjects: Ore-dressing -- BibliographyNotes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be numerous typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Visual
This book provides a brief history of Missouri, from the native Mound Builders, to the first Europeans, Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark Expedition, settlement, statehood, Civil War, and the Pony Express.The book also provides a discussion of current government, economics, and people.The highly visual book is geared for mid-elementary, but the pictures are mature enough to work with older elementary students.This book would be valuable to use in a Missouri history unit. ... Read more

Product Description
A brief introduction to the history, land, cities, industries, and famous citizens and sites in the Show Me State. ... Read more