What's the Deal

Customer Reviews:

An outstanding book that makes history come alive........1998-10-19

SEE *Starred Review of "School and Library Journal --- a rave review. eg. quotes: The author makes an exciting and suspenseful tale out of the negotiations" ..."Students of polotical science and American history will welcome this title." Book written by Newbery Honor winner, and recpient of many prestigious awards.

Southern Counterpart to Lewis and Clark: The Freeman and Custis Sccounts of the Red River Expeditiom of 1806 (American Exploration and Travel)

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Where????
An intriguing study of forgotten history

Southern Counterpart to Lewis and Clark: The Freeman and Custis Sccounts of the Red River Expeditiom of 1806 (American Exploration and Travel)
Dan Flores
Manufacturer: University of Oklahoma Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Forgotten Expedition, 1804-1805: The Louisiana Purchase Journals of Dunbar And Hunter
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ASIN: 0806119411

Customer Reviews:

Where????.......2003-09-24

How annoying to not show us a current map (or a sequence of current maps) with the trip route noted! My first question is "where did they go?" And then, what Red River are they tallking about? It's not the Red River of the North (too far north), it's not the Red River in northern New Mexico-- where is it? One must find some other maps ---of Louisiana and parts due west, and dig around to find the geographic area covered by this book. It was hard to keep interested when I could not get a true feel for the geographic locations. The botany and annotations regarding the botany were intriguing.

An intriguing study of forgotten history.......2002-07-26

Few people living today know that President Thomas Jefferson launched two expeditions into the Louisiana territory purchased in 1803; Lewis and Clark to the north, Freeman and Custis to the south. Lewis and Clark have been covered thoroughly, even triumphally, because they completed their task. Freeman and Curtis have been ignored because they were intercepted by Spanish soldiers after exploring hundreds of miles of the Red River. Historian Dan Flores, drawing on both American and Spanish sources, performs a real service by describing this southern expedition and placing it within the context of its time (1806). Flores reminds us that the Spanish tried to stop Lewis and Clark too, but missed them. He shows us that the scheming General Wilkinson wanted the Freeman and Custis expedition to provoke a war with Spain, and nearly succeeded. Flores provides an introduction before the expedition's own account, and an epilogue after. His annotation of the expedition's documents is exceptionally thorough and often fascinating. The book includes numerous black and white illustrations and reproductions of several old maps. A modern map of the area would have been helpful. This book is one of an excellent series published by the University of Oklahoma Press.

The Nation's Crucible: The Louisiana Purchase and the Creation of America

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The Nation's Crucible: The Louisiana Purchase and the Creation of America
Peter J. Kastor
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0300101198

Book Description

In 1803 the United States purchased Louisiana from France. This seemingly simple acquisition brought with it an enormous new territory as well as the country's first large population of nonnaturalized Americans--Native Americans, African Americans, and Francophone residents. What would become of those people dominated national affairs in the years that followed. This book chronicles that contentious period from 1803 to 1821, years during which people proposed numerous visions of the future for Louisiana and the United States. The Louisiana Purchase proved to be the crucible of American nationhood, Peter Kastor argues. The incorporation of Louisiana was among the most important tasks for a generation of federal policymakers. It also transformed the way people defined what it meant to be an American.

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Not history at its worst, but it does have shortcomings
Substandard?!--Nonsense!
History writing at its worst
You Never Knew How Much you Didn't Know
Dipolmacy, Warts and All

The Louisiana Purchase
Thomas Fleming
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0471267384

Book Description

From The Louisiana Purchase

Like many other major events in world history, the Louisiana Purchase is a fascinating mix of destiny and individual energy and creativity. . . . Thomas Jefferson would have been less than human had he not claimed a major share of the credit. In a private letter . . . the president, reviving a favorite metaphor, said he "very early saw" Louisiana was a "speck" that could turn into a "tornado." He added that the public never knew how near "this catastrophe was." But he decided to calm the hotheads of the west and "endure" Napoleon's aggression, betting that a war with England would force Bonaparte to sell. This policy "saved us from the storm." Omitted almost entirely from this account is the melodrama of the purchase, so crowded with "what ifs" that might have changed the outcome-and the history of the world.

The reports of the Lewis and Clark expedition . . . electrified the nation with their descriptions of a region of broad rivers and rich soil, of immense herds of buffalo and other game, of grassy prairies seemingly as illimitable as the ocean. . . . From the Louisiana Purchase would come, in future decades, the states of Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and large portions of what is now North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Minnesota, Colorado, and Louisiana. For the immediate future, the purchase, by doubling the size of the United States, transformed it from a minor to a major world power. The emboldened Americans soon absorbed West and East Florida and fought mighty England to a bloody stalemate in the War of 1812. Looking westward, the orators of the 1840s who preached the "Manifest Destiny" of the United States to preside from sea to shining sea based their oratorical logic on the Louisiana Purchase.

TURNING POINTS features preeminent writers offering fresh, personal perspectives on the defining events of our time.

Customer Reviews:

Not history at its worst, but it does have shortcomings.......2007-07-19

I enjoyed reading this little book. Fleming is a well known historian who spins out an improbable tale of how our country more than doubled in size overnight and how it almost didn't happen. If it were fiction I'm not certain I would consider it plausible. But it happened. My main gripe is this: Where the blazes are the index and bibliography? This smells of a publishing decision, not Fleming's. Whoever made it, it was wrong-headed.

Substandard?!--Nonsense!.......2007-07-07

"Substandard"?!--Hardly. "what territories it encompassed"?!--"who explored it"?!--These things are left out because these questions are answered by any American history textbook, ad nauseum.

What Fleming's (short) book concentrates on is exactly what is neglected in textbooks: "the diplomatic tug of war". As usual, he does it with a writing style that is captivating.

History writing at its worst.......2003-12-18

This short book is a perfect example of substandard history writing. I call substandard historiography a way of writing history with a narrow focus on isolated events. Typically this is how school history textbooks are written (or used to be written).

"The Louisiana Purchase" by Thomas Fleming offers no explanation whatsoever about the broader social, political and economic context in which this momentous event took place. There are no maps and worse still, the reader will look in vain for a description of Louisiana: what territories it encompassed, who lived there, who explored it are subjects the author entirely leaves out. "The Louisiana Purchase" is just a chronicle of the diplomatic tug of war surrounding the deal in Paris and Washington and nothing more.

To this narrow focus I add a grotesque misrepresentation of the French side. The depiction of Napoleon is little more than a caricature: he is again and again portrayed as the Corsican ogre so dear to English propaganda, and the other French characters in the book get the same treatment.

Finally, what is also totally lacking in this book is reflection. Never does the author stop his narrative to share his thoughts with the reader although many of the events that he relates invite questions or comments. Like in a Hollywood film, events succeed each other without any respite.

This is simply not the kind of history one should read at the beginning of the 21st century.

You Never Knew How Much you Didn't Know.......2003-11-03

This is a great history.

We all knew that the La. Purchase was a "steal" perpetrated during the Jefferson administration, that Bonaparte needed the money, that Lewis and Clark explored the territory and Jefferson skirted the Constitution to make the deal.

This book tells in very readable prose all that you probably did not know beyond that skeletal history - like the Lewis and Clark mission started as a military reconnoiter and only later turned into a scientific one.

Mr. Fleming takes the reader into the palace and diplomatic intrigues of France, Spain and England to tell us how the purchase really came about. He includes the bribes and backdoor dealings emanating from Paris and how they were understood or misunderstood in America. Mr. Fleming also portrays well the fledging politics and "spinning" in the new UNited States. Included are the views of the naysayers on both sides of the ocean in all four countries as well.

This is well-written and interesting throughout. Fleming's short descriptioins of each major character are brief but very concise. There is not a wasted word in the book. I strongly recommend it to anyone with even a passing history of the United States.

Dipolmacy, Warts and All.......2003-07-14

This is a fun way to re-read history 101. Remember what a wily scuzz Talleyrand was? And how upright Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were by comparison? And do you recall how rapid the rise of Napoleon was from commander of the French army to Emperor of France? Toss all these characters into the equation, add mosquitoes in Santo Domingo and the question of whether Spain or France owned the Louisiana Territory. Result is a tale well told with plenty of juicy adjectives missing from history textbooks - so fascinating it's like reading a sanitized modern novel.

Thomas Fleming adroitly weaves dates, events and places together with characterizations of the men who made it possible for the Louisiana Territory to become part of the United States. He stays with the main characters, focuses on pertinent peripheral events that tipped the scales at opportune times, and gives the reader a vivid sense of how closely diplomacy is related to patience, chicanery, misinformation, trial by press and bribery.

Two surprises to this reader were how very long it took to get news and legal documents from France to Washington, and from the East Coast to New Orleans AND how frequent and how quick was the tendency to try for secession on the part of loyal Americans as well as corrupt leaders. Only "diplomacy" and a tip of the scales of peripheral events kept the United States united through the years of Jefferson's presidency to the War of 1812.

Book Description

At the same time that he charged Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the great Northwest, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned George Hunter and William Dunbar to make a parallel journey through the southern unmapped regions of the Louisiana Purchase. From October 16, 1804, to January 26, 1805, Hunter and Dunbar, both renowned scientists, made their way through what is now northern Louisiana and southern Arkansas, ascending the Ouachita River and investigating the natural curiosity called "the hot springs." Though Hunter and Dunbar's journals have the same value and appeal as Lewis's, theirs have long been out of print and have never been published in a single volume. Their daily accounts now appear together, enhanced by a wealth of useful notes.

The team of the "Grand Expedition," as it was optimistically named, was the first to send its findings on the newly annexed territory to the president, who received Dunbar and Hunter's detailed journals with pleasure. They include descriptions of flora and fauna, geology, weather, landscapes, and native peoples and European settlers, as well as astronomical and navigational records that allowed the first accurate English maps of the region and its waterways to be produced. Their scientific experiments conducted at the hot springs may be among the first to discover a microscopic phenomena still under research today.

The Forgotten Expedition completes the picture of the Louisiana Purchase presented through the journals of explorers Lewis and Clark, Zebulon Pike, and Thomas Freeman and Peter Custis. It is a treasure of the early natural history of North America and the first depiction of this new U.S. southern frontier.

"Set out at half past six a.m. The morning very foggy on the river & not so cold as yesterday. The banks still rising in height by slow degrees & the land more & more intermixed with sand…. Found on the bank a young Fawn just killed by a Panther, the throat being tore very much. We took it on board & made a hearty meal of it, or two for all hands."

AUTHOR BIO: Trey Berry is a professor of history at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. He served as project director for the documentary film The Forgotten Expedition: The Journey of Dunbar and Hunter.

Pam Beasley is the director of the Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources in Smackover, Arkansas.

Jeanne Clements retired as director of the Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources in 2003. She lives in Tucson, Arizona.

A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America
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Tons of Detail

An absorbing account

Lost in the Wilderness

Highly Relevant and Thought Provoking

A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America
Jon Kukla
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | 19th Century | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0375707611
Release Date: 2004-08-10

Book Description

In A Wilderness so Immense, historian Jon Kukla recounts the fascinating tale of the personal maneuverings, political posturing, and international intrigue that culminated in the greatest land deal in history. Spanning nearly two decades, Kukla’s book brings to life a pageant of characters from Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and John Jay, to Napoleon and Carlos III of Spain and other colorful figures.

Employing letters, memoirs, contemporary documents, and a host of other sources, Kukla creates a complete and compelling account of the Louisiana Purchase. From the hinterlands in Kentucky to the courts of Spain, France, and England to the halls of Congress, he re-creates the forces and personalities that turned a struggle for navigation rights on the Mississippi into an event that doubled the size of the country and altered the destiny of the United States forever.

Customer Reviews:

Tons of Detail.......2007-03-07

I read this book for my own personal research. If you want detail, this has it: Not only what people did, but what they ate and who they were sleeping with. The thing I did not like about the book was each chapter dealt with one thing, for example Pickney's treaty. This made each chapter have to go back and cover time frames in other chapters, so it got a bit confusing with all the overlaps. I would have rather he wrote it straight chronologically. Also, most the chapters had titles that did not give much of a hint as to what was in them, for example: "A Long Train of Intrique", "Banners of Blood", and "Selling a Ship". When I needed to go back and find something, it was very difficult to figure out which chapter it was in. You can't say, "Well, I know it happened before this" because lots of chapters before and after have things from "before this". There is an index, but there are lots of references to Napoleon, Charles IV and Jefferson, so you have to do a lot of extra looking up. Bottom line, very thourough, but difficult to sift through.

An absorbing account.......2003-12-25

I admit I decided to read this book because I thought it only fitting in this bicentennial year of the Louisiana Purchase to do so, and that I was struck by the felicitous title (on a par with other titles which stand out in my memory (They Shoot Horses, Don't They? [read 9 Apr 1952], Right Hand, Glove Uplifted [read Jun 30, 1983], I Came Out of the 18th Century [read 3 Feb 1979], I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia [read 26 Feb 1987], Keep the Aspidistra Flying [read 2 Apr 2002], and What Me Befell [read 24 Feb 2001]). But it turned out to be a super-interesting book, especially when it got to the actual events leading up to the negotiations with Napolean. One stands in awe of the superlative job which Livingston did in conditioning Napoleon to be willing to sell and the suspense which attends the negotiations is surprising (since one know that it all turns out for the best, because here I am living in Iowa and an American citizen). The research is impeccable, and the footnotes ample, and one is even favored with the text of Pinckney's treaty of 1795 as well as of the Treaty to buy Louisiana. (In the next edition the statement on page 251 that Napoleon died on Elba should be corrected, as well as the statement on page 272 saying Livingston met Talleyrand on "January" 12 instead of April 12, 1803.) The book is full of interesting tidbits, such as telling what happened to Shays of Shays' Rebellion fame, and to Toussaint after the promise to him was broken and he was arrested. This is history which cannot fail to be appreciated when read.

Lost in the Wilderness.......2003-10-06

Jon Kukla certainly provides a vast account of events leading up the Louisiana Purchase, but seems to get lost in the Wilderness in the process. He offers interesting character sketches and numerous anecdotal references, but it takes him most of the book to get down to the nitty gritty of the purchase itself.

He tries to hook readers into his account by providing a very questionable view of Jefferson in Paris in the opening chapter. He assumes a pedophiliac relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings. He plays this against an account of the building of the Richmond capitol to illustrate how Jefferson was not afraid to use subterfuge to get anything he wanted. Kukla also plays Jefferson off against Monroe, who he seems to have more admiration for.

Kukla also has an obsession for the early secessionist drives in the fledgling US, and how the Spanish played off these sectional differences, particularly in regard to the nefarious James Wilkinson. I think Kukla made too much of these secessionist drives. Mostly it was a battle between the Federalists and the Republicans, not deep-seated sectional differences. Of course these differences would ultimately lead to the Civil War, but at this point the Union was in its formative stages, and the new territories vied for statehood not independence.

I got the impression that Kukla was trying to build a picture of the early United States and its place in the world moreso than illuminate readers on the Louisiana Purchase. There is an awful lot of information on the Spanish-French-American connection, but so little on the strong tie between the US and Britain. He focuses heavily on the Virginians, and presents the Northeastern contingent as incidental characters with the exception of Robert Livingston, who set much of the groundwork for the Purchase.

Kukla spends an inordinate amount of time on the French Revolution, as a means of introducing us to Napoleon and Tallyrand. He also uses the revolution as the basis for the Haitian Independence drive which so greatly consternated Virginia planters. Kukla does provide a pretty good account of Citizen Genet and his attempt to form a militia to take New Orleans prior to the repossession of the territory by Napoleon.

It seems Kukla is trying to impress readers with his universal knowledge of events rather than focus on the more salient aspects of the Louisiana Purchase. All in all, it is an entertaining account of events but one that seems to lose its bearings in a wilderness so immense.

Highly Relevant and Thought Provoking.......2003-07-20

What I learned about the Louisiana Purchase in school was pretty cut-and-dried: A bunch of very statesmanlike men wearing powdered wigs made an incredible real estate deal that more than doubled the size of the United States and enabled Manifest Destiny to happen, usually within the next five pages.

Jon Kukla did us all a service by sitting down and asking what the Louisiana Purchase actually meant to the North, the South, and the burgeoning Western Territories, both then, in the more distant future, and even now.

In 1803, New Orleans was a Caribbean port with a large population of free mulattoes, Creoles, French, and Spanish -- not to mention a sprinkling of American traders. It was like nothing that the original Thirteen Colonies ever saw, and it was but a foretaste of the rampant multiculturalism that has become a dominant feature of our lives.

Did you know that the first impulse to secession was not in the South, but in Massachusetts? The "Essex Junto," dating as far back as 1786, allowed itself to be influenced by Spain for purely regional benefits. As late as the Hartford Convention in 1815, the threat of secession was primarily a Yankee threat; only later did the South adopt it.

Jefferson, Livingston, and Monroe tread on new ground in cutting the deal: There was nothing in the new Constitution to allow them such powers, nor was there anything that expressly forbade it. And no sooner was the deal made than the United States began to face new problems, such as the expansion of slavery in the new territories. It was the Purchase that led in an almost direct line to the Missouri Compromise of 1820; and from there, to the Dred Scott Decision; and from there to the horrors of the War Between the States.

Kukla's book can be read on several levels. I read it as an exciting tale of diplomacy between the United States, Spain, and France spanning twenty years. As a work of scholarship, it contains extensive but unobtrusive endnotes, maps, and appendices containing the texts of the 1795 treaty with Spain, the Louisiana Purchase Treaty and Conventions, and some draft amendments to the Constitution proposed by Jefferson in 1803 to legitimize the Purchase.

I did not expect much from this book at first, but Kukla was so successful in working in threads and themes that continue to this day, that the book is highly relevant and thought provoking. It is odd to call a book about diplomacy gripping, but any tale that weaves together Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, Toussaint L'Ouverture (the Black Haitian revolutionary), Talleyrand, and Napoleon Bonaparte so well can be described in no other way.

Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase
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History Covered from a Different Angle

Socialistic drivel

Jeckyl/Hyde Jeffersonians

fascinating

If I could give it a zero, I would.

Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase
Roger G. Kennedy
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

Thomas Jefferson advocated a republic of small farmers--free and independent yeomen. And yet as president he presided over a massive expansion of the slaveholding plantation system--particularly with the Louisiana Purchase--squeezing the yeomanry to the fringes and to less desirable farmland. Now Roger Kennedy conducts an eye-opening examination of that gap between Jefferson's stated aspirations and what actually happened. Kennedy reveals how the Louisiana Purchase had a major impact on land use and the growth of slavery. He examines the great financial interests (such as the powerful land companies that speculated in new territories and the British textile interests) that beat down slavery's many opponents in the South itself (Native Americans, African Americans, Appalachian farmers, and conscientious opponents of slavery). He describes how slaveholders' cash crops (first tobacco, then cotton) sickened the soil and how the planters moved from one desolated tract to the next. Soon the dominant culture of the entire region--from Maryland to Florida, from Carolina to Texas--was that of owners and slaves producing staple crops for international markets. The earth itself was impoverished, in many places beyond redemption. None of this, Kennedy argues, was inevitable. He focuses on the character, ideas, and ambitions of Thomas Jefferson to show how he and other Southerners struggled with the moral dilemmas presented by the presence of Indian farmers on land they coveted, by the enslavement of their workforce, by the betrayal of their stated hopes, and by the manifest damage being done to the earth itself. Jefferson emerges as a tragic figure in a tragic period.

Customer Reviews:

History Covered from a Different Angle.......2007-03-02

Roger G. Kennedy examines the steps that were taken by Thomas Jefferson to secure the Louisiana Territory from Spanish acquisition. MR. JEFFERSON'S LOST CAUSE: LAND, FARMERS, SLAVERY, AND THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE covers the pivotal years of 1802 and 1820 and other years connected to Kennedy's study. His main premise is to prove that if constrictions did not exist for Yeomen and slaves, if Jefferson's personal character, arrogance and pessimism, did not interfere with the decisions he made, concessions could have been made before and after the execution of the Louisiana Purchase that may have prevented the US Civil War and the issue of slavery.

MR. JEFFERSON'S LOST CAUSE is a unique examination that Kennedy narrates with extreme detail. But one of the unfortunate aspects of his narration is that some of the passages are so intense with historical data that one loses his point, or forget what the book is about. As Director Emeritus of the National Museum of American History and the National Park Service, Kennedy attempts to creatively intertwine his knowledge and fondness for biological, geological, ecological history, Early American and Roman history as it relates to the activities that occurred with the land. However, they appear out of place and somewhat disconnected to the main subject at hand - Jefferson, the land, slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase. For example, readers may become lost if they do not know about geology, and the different periods that existed, the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, which he uses as analogies to explain John Marshall's Dartmouth College decision of 1819 and how it ties in with the phases of capitalism and corporate growth as well as the introduction to chapter 13 where he begins his discussion with a short biology lesson about organisms. In addition, this is yet another book where the main character disappears amongst the immense amount of information. Kennedy dedicates a chapter or two on several key contributors to the Louisiana Purchase, Alexander McGillvray and Fulwar Skipwith.

So in essence, what can be learned from reading MR. JEFFERSON'S LOST CAUSE? Kennedy emphasizes that Jefferson was the "father of the land," but did use his experience of Plantation management to the best of his ability to provide balanced relations with the Yeomen. The story and analysis of this historical event was told from a different angle, but may have been enriching if the narrative moved laterally. While reading the book, memories of the past come to mind when I used to have to write and revise papers for my history classes, and had to constantly remind myself what my thesis was. Otherwise, the bibliography is a helpful source to understand the foundation of Kennedy's research.

Socialistic drivel.......2005-06-07

If you want a good book regarding the Founders and slavery, look to Paul Finkelman's Slavery and the Founders, not this disappointing mess. The organization is poor, there's not a logical flow to the information provided, and the author has a tendency to ramble. We know the Founders failed to implement the Declaration and Jefferson was a hypocrite on many subjects. Don't waste your time hearing it over and over again in this book.

Jeckyl/Hyde Jeffersonians.......2004-09-26

The truth comes out sooner or later, we hope. Here the record speaks for itself, deflating the strains of Yankee Doodle with some 'historical materialist' analysis of the facts of the case re the schizophrenia of our revered founder, Tom Jefferson, a man of fine words and a spastic record on the issue of slavery. 'What might have been' competes with the indictment of the lost opportunity to prevent the spread of the plantation system into the new territories of the emerging American system, especially in the wake of the Louisiana Purchase.
Between the Declaration and the Gettysberg Address we find too much American history sawdust.
Excellent piece of research behind the myth machines operating on a July Fourth schedule, 'whole cloth', like the commodity of empire in the British cotton kingdom that rapidly survived the blunder of losing its fiefdom in the soon reconquered South.
Yeoman farmers? Come on. My leg is pulled out of joint.

fascinating.......2004-07-19

I found this book fascinating on many counts.

First, the description of how the plantations east of the Allegheny Mountains were viewed as disposable by the men who ran them, since it was cheaper to buy new land on the frontier than properly maintain the land they currently possessed. Also, how these same men for various reasons and led by Jefferson resisted the industrialization that would diversified the economy of the south.

Second, how Jefferson and his allies catered to the land gluttony displayed by those early planters as new land was acquired for the United States. This was largely accomplished by dispossessing the people inconveniently already settling the land, and handing large swathes of land over to slave-holding planters emigrating from the lands they had exhausted.

Kennedy in fact dwells for much of the book on the territory of Florida (expanding beyond the current borders of that state across much of the South) possessed by Spain and settled prior to US acquisition by a mixture of Indians, whites and blacks who out of neccessity practiced sustainable agriculture on a small scale. I found the picture of Florida in that period to be one of the particularly interesting parts of the book. The relationship between the US and the people already settled on lands it wished to acquire (especially Indians), using Florida as a case study, was enlightening.

Kennedy provides some critical information for evaluating Jefferson's political leadership on the most compelling moral issue facing the young republic-the endurance and expansion of slavery within its boundaries. First, although the debate in Congress during his presidency over the expansion of slavery into new territories was very close, Jefferson refrained from using his influence to lead in this controversy. Thus, his anti-slavery rhetoric was saved for moments in his life (early and late in his career) when it was unlikely to influence policy, and perhaps as no coincidence his self-interest and the interest of his landed friends. Indeed, once Jefferson's agriculturally impoverished land would no longer yield a profit, rather than join other planters heading west, he decided he could support himself most easily by breeding slaves to be sold to those emigrants. In this way, the man who despised the merchant and industrial classes for their supposed lack of moral character, supported his own extravagent lifestyle. In this, as on many other issues, Jefferson was an impressively self-indulgent hypocrite. Sadly, this supposedly great president was striking for his lack of will and vision on how best to establish a republic in which the AVERAGE citizen would have a reasonable opportunity to pursue happiness.

I would have liked to have given this book 4 1/2 stars, because there was a certain lack of organization, and some parts were confusing, so I can't say it was perfectly written. But I found the subject matter truly eye-opening and heartily recommend it to anyone interested in the subject matter.

If I could give it a zero, I would........2004-06-11

Roger G.Kennedy is a man on a mission: to embellish, lie and slander Thomas Jefferson. Kennedy is the typical modern biographer,always ready to destroy another one of America's heroes. In the sad and cynical fashion of today, Kennedy does his best to paint Thomas Jefferson as a lousy President, slaveholder and racist. The book is deplorable, just as most modern American history has become. I am sure the modern left, postmodernist, deconstructionist crowd loves this piece. It has all of the nihlism, lies, and propaganda one would expect from a "profession" laden with Marxists and Leninsts who would like nothing better than to see another American icon destroyed. A real piece of garbage.

Jefferson's America & Napoleon's France: An Exhibition for the Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial

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Jefferson's America & Napoleon's France: An Exhibition for the Louisiana Purchase Bicentennial
Gail Feigenbaum
Manufacturer: New Orleans Museum of Art
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

Book Description

Thomas Jefferson and Napoleon Bonaparte, brilliant and complicated men, are among history's most fascinating figures. In 1803 the Louisiana Purchase brought the worlds of Jefferson and Napoleon together for a transforming moment in history.

Americans are accustomed to thinking of the Louisiana Purchase as changing the course of American history. On the occasion of the bicentennial of this event, however, Jefferson's America and Napoleon's France places the Louisiana Purchase in the context of the greater Atlantic world of commerce and culture. The complicated cultural politics and special relationship between France and America at the time of the Louisiana Purchase are explored through paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings, documents, furniture, and decorative arts. Essays consider the personalities, issues, politics, and art of the time in depth, from Josephine Bonaparte's remarkable home and gardens at Malmaison to Thomas Jefferson's furniture made by enslaved joiners, and provide glimpses of the Native American cultures abundant in the Louisiana Territory.

The Constitutional History of the Louisiana Purchase: 1803-1812 (Cosimo Classics History)
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The Constitutional History of the Louisiana Purchase: 1803-1812 (Cosimo Classics History)
Everett, Somerville Brown
Manufacturer: Cosimo Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | 19th Century | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
General | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
Louisiana | State & Local | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
Constitutions | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Constitutional Law | Law | Subjects | Books
General | Constitutional Law | Law | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1596052627

Book Description

The United States Constitution has no specific grant to acquire territory, yet the U.S. has expanded from the East Coast to the West, from thirteen colonies to fifty states. One of the nation's most important-and very early-acquisitions was the Louisiana Purchase during Thomas Jefferson's presidential administration. In The Constitutional History of the Louisiana Purchase, author Everett Somerville Brown examines the legal aspects of this purchase and the constitutional interpretations the statesmen and legislators of the time developed as a consequence. Brown also looks at the Breckinridge Bill, which granted the president the power to appoint all government officials in the new territory; Jefferson's plans for the settlement of Louisiana; and the status of the inhabitants of the territory, with special emphasis on Native American and slavery issues. EVERETT SOMERVILLE BROWN (1886-1964) also authored William Plumer's Memorandum of Proceedings in the United States Senate 1803-1807 and Ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Eagle's Cry: A Novel of the Louisiana Purchase (The American Story)

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Poor History
The death of George Washington Is symbolic as the end
Fun way to learn history
Good history, fine story, poor style
Not perfect, but highly enjoyable

Eagle's Cry: A Novel of the Louisiana Purchase (The American Story)
David Nevin
Manufacturer: Forge Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Historical | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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Rise to Rebellion: A Novel of the American Revolution

ASIN: 0812524721

Book Description

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison are leading the nation from an incipient aristocracy toward a modern democracy in what Jefferson would call the Second Revolution.But with the death of George Washington comes the two party system and struggles for which the young nation is ill prepared. First comes an internal coup attempt and then the threat of Napoleon's army landing in New Orleans which leads ultimately to the triumphant Louisiana Purchase and the emergence of America as a continental nation. All this as the greatest minds and visionaries of young America lay the foundation for the America we know today.

Customer Reviews:

Poor History.......2007-05-20

The one excerpt I read from this book - a conversation between Dolley and 'Jimmy' Madison regarding Sally Hemings and her sister 'Betsey', calling Jefferson 'Tom' and referring to Sally and 'Betsey' as 'toddlers' when they came to Monticello - reveals the worst research I have ever seen on the subject, a complete lack of knowledge of the period, and the sort of 'First Name/Last Name' reference common to uneducated writers writing historical fiction of late.

With all due respect, Madison's nickname was 'Jemmy'; Sally Hemings' sister BETTY Brown was a good deal older than a toddler when she came to Monticello (Sally was a year old and thus a toddler); and Mr. Jefferson was known to his VERY intimate friends as Thomas; and Mrs. Madison would hardly have lectured her husband on Martha Wayles Jefferson - a women her husband knew well and she not at all.

I shudder to think what the rest of this book is like, if this half-page is any example! One star because I can't give it zero.

The death of George Washington Is symbolic as the end.......2005-05-26

of the 18th century & the start of the new one. It is a good jumping off point for this prequel to David Nevin's novel, 1812. It is written four years later but his style is unmistakable. It is 608 pages long. Since it is told like a story, I felt the unabridged audio version was the best way to go.
The presidential camapaign of 1800 may have been the vilest & mean-sprited in our history. It also effected a major change in our constitution. No longer would the runner-up in the presidential race become vice president as had previously been the case. It just became be too politically dificult for the president to have his major opponent sitting as president of the Senate. It was the final step into full blown political parties & conventions that we now have. Interestingly, there is no mention of political parties or conventions in our constitution as a way to nominate a presidential canidate.
There are two major plots in this novel that are connected. The first is an expedition clear accross the continent to the Pacific. First mentioned in 1795 by Thomas Jefferson to his neighbor back home in Virginia. This became the Lewis & Clark Expedition of 1804-06. That neighbor was Merriweather Lewis, a Major, U.S. Army. It was a trip to the moon by today's standards. The other plot line was a the fate of New Orleans. Spanish? French?American? It was nominally owned by Spain who could not hold it much longer & everyone knew that. Much depended on the war in Europe. There was currently a truce as Naploloen pondered an invasion of England. There was a slave revolt in the French Colony of Haiti. France sent 25,000 troops. It was also a conveniant jumping off point to invade New Orleans. The United States also needed New Orleans for it controlled the Mississippi River, gateway to the vast interior of the continent, owned, at this time by France. America could not have resisted the French alone. They would need the British Navy. The British were eager to help the Americans. That would have reduced America to a vassel state beholden to England & hastened the sucession of New England (& New York) from the rest of the union. It never came to that of course. As it turned out Napoloen lost his entire 25,000 man army in Haiti to the heat, disease & fierce native resistance. They never returned. He rethought his plan to send another 25,000 men to New Orleans. As all this was going on Major Lewis was obsessing over the expedition. He finally got the go ahead from President Jefferson. It was at first a secret. The expedition would be tresspaasing through French territory. Lewis felt it would be a long shot that the French would kmow about it much less find him.
Through-out this history lesson is the drama of the personal lives of Lewis, Jefferson, James & Dolly Madison, Vice President Aaron Burr, John Ouincy Adams etc. & many fictious characters to advance the plots. What is happening in New Orleans or Paris or Washinton D.C.? The tension between France & The United States at this time is well exploited by Mr. Nevin.
Spain has given New Orleans legally to the the French. Finally Napoleon sells not only New Orleans but the entire Lousisiana
Territory. He wisely recognizes that he cannot fight in America as well as Europe. It is also a stick in the eye of England who had expansionist plans in the west. This purchase instantly doubles the land mass of the United States. This book, or tape, if your prefer, is an excellent entertainment & historical value & highly recommended.

Fun way to learn history.......2004-09-26

What other reviewers say about lack of suspense is partially right. Because this novel is based on so much historical fact, not much can be done to dress up the events without altering the heart of what really happened. I didn't find the book to be boring in the least, and thought it very informative. By reading this book I learned more about the people and events of early America - that I had most recently learned in a college US History class, but now have so much accompanying information and a better feel for those times.

Good history, fine story, poor style.......2004-05-28

Why was the Louisiana Purchase so important? How did it come to pass, anyway? Which one was Meriweather Lewis? Eagle's Cry is a fine piece of historical fiction that will bring back to life many of the influential leaders of the nascent United States. The rise of political parties and the origins of partisanship, the bitterness and animosity against Adams and his Alien and Sedition Acts, and the wisdom of Madison, the quirkiness of Jefferson, and the selfishness of Burr are all here.

And yet, somehow, the characters seem almost two dimensional at times under Nevin's pen. The author tries hard - and often succeeds - to bring a level of familiarity and casualness to these exceptional men and women. While that did not bother me, the recurrent technique of beginning sentences with verbs and completely dropping subjects ("Marched into New York", "Felt better already," etcetera etcetera ad infinitum) did. And with all of these wonderfully charismatic historical figures, the introduction of a prominent fictional character detracts from, rather than augments, the novel.

I enjoyed Eagle's Cry and often found myself stealing a few minutes here and there guiltily to advance a chapter whenever possible. And Nevin's history is top notch. So why am I hesitating to read the next in the series?

Not perfect, but highly enjoyable.......2002-03-13

As others have mentioned, Eagle's Cry isn't perfect. I agree with the reviewer who said that Nevin was projecting current culture onto historical events. However, I think the point of the novel is to remind us that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were mortal human beings. The book is fascinating because it give an imagined "behind the sceens" look at how these heros might have been in real life.

Parts of the book are slow, but overall, I found it throughly enjoyable. A unique book in this age of cookie-cutter romance novels and bland fiction.

Definetly worth reading. I've already bought the sequel and am looking forward to reading it.

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