"Undaunted Courage"...

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Anyone else read this Stephen Ambrose book about the Lewis and Clark expedition? The detail in this book is outstanding, and really helps one to understand what a monumental undertaking that journey was...all the time faced with the unknown around every bend or turn. The sheer toughness of those people is hard to imagine...guess they would all be Navy SEAL material in this day and age! Highly recommended.
 
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Anyone else read this Stephen Ambrose book about the Lewis and Clark expedition? The detail in this book is outstanding, and really helps one to understand what a monumental undertaking that journey was...all the time faced with the unknown around every bend or turn. The sheer toughness of those people is hard to imagine...guess they would all be Navy SEAL material in this day and age! Highly recommended.
 
Fantastic book. I read it many years ago and again in the spring of 2006 2 months after I had a hip replaced. I read it slowly along with a book titled, "Along The Trail With Lewis and Clark" while taking 6 weeks to drive their trip from St. Louis to Oregon and back. Took my "85 Ford 250 diesel, 4-speed carrying my '73 Ford American Road 11' pickup camper. Staying on back raods (no superslabs) and keeping it at 55 mph I got 19.5 mpg. Great trip! One of the outstanding stops was in Kansas City to see The Steamboat Arabia Museum.
 
I read the Journals.

One thing that struck me was Lewis (I think) saying many times, "I resolved to sell my life dearly."

He was mostly referring to tense situations with Indian tribes, but it might also have said it about scraps involving grizzly bears.

Sounds like a good thing to keep in mind in some situations possible today, no?
 
I just finished a couple months ago. A great adventure book and history lesson.

Besides the insight into Lewis, I found the involvement of Thomas Jefferson and the politics of the time very interesting.
 
I read it last May while on an Alaskan cruise. My wife fussed at me because I couldn't hardly put the book down. Ambrose did a good job with that one.
 
Read it a few years ago. The study he went through before the trip surprised me. There was more botany involved than I realized.
 
Yup, I've read it, keep it on my bookshelf, and go back and selectively re-read sections from time to time. It is substantially better than David Lavender's "The Way to the Western Sea," which also is an account of the Lewis & Clark Expedition.

For history buffs, may I also recommend "Son of the Morning Star", by Evan Connell it is incredibly well-researched and written, and is the best account of Custer and the Little Bighorn that I have ever read.

Bill
 
I have a problem with Ambrose because of his plagiarism with so many of "his" works.

Regarding the the expedition, "The Journals of Lewis and Clark" is still in print. It is a great read. Greater to in that it is the first hand account; however, Ambrose did write the forward in the current printing.
 
I have been a student of Lewis & Clark and the Corps of Discovery since I was a kid growing up in St. Louis.

I'll list several other books on the expedition.

Bernard Devoto, "The Journals of Lewis and Clark."

Landon Y. Jones, "William Clark and the Shaping of the West"
Also by Jones " The Essential Lewis and Clark.

Larry E. Morris, "The Fate of the Corps." What became of the Lewis and Clark Explorers after the Expedition.

Carol Lynn MacGregor, "The Journals of Patrick Gass" Member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Willard Sterne Randall, "Thomas Jefferson A Life" (I'm still trying my best to finish this.)
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Also another great easy read by Stephen E. Ambrose is "Nothing like it in the world" The men who built the transcontinental railroad 1863-1869.
Anyone who lives in California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming or Nebraska and can travel along this route and you can in most places by following I-80, should feel the history of westward expansion. It's just remarkable what they did with pick, shovel, rod and chain.

Bob
 
Originally posted by billhud:
I have a problem with Ambrose because of his plagiarism with so many of "his" works....
Click to expand...
Me too. [I also have an issue with his 101st history. There are better historians out there. I suppose he is deserved of being credited with shinning the spotlight on WWII airborne troops, although now the general public thinks E company won the entire European theater.]
I am reading their journals with his (Amborse) forward right now. It's a slow read for me; one-because I'm trying to absorb all the info and figure out the "wheres" and "whens" and two; all the misspellings and the way they wrote is slowing me down.
 
I like Ambrose's writing, and I think his first-person interviews (not with Lewis and Clark) are one reason for his popularity with the general public. I've spotted some technical errors in his writings, but they are overcome by the readability and overall accuracy of his works. Unfortunately he is dead and not able to defend his writings against charges of plagiarism.
 
He did a Marvelous Job of getting the WWII Museum in New Orleans started. Unfortunately Katrina and the damn looters ruined it.
 
I read "Undaunted Courage" when it was first released.
Living in Lewiston,Idaho across the river from Clarkston, Washington, the Corps of Discovery has special meaning to us.
Having fished "Colt Kilt Creek" and the Lochsa and camped and elk hunbted at Portable Soup Camp is special.
If you every get out this way, travel the Lolo Motorway which follows a good bit of their Idaho route.
I'm still amazed at how they could traverse this still difficult terrain.
 
I read, I think, Devoto's "Journals..." at my late father's commendation, looking particularly for his comment that they fancied the flesh of mountain lions as table fare. I don't recall any mention of this in Devoto's book. For those of you who've read other accounts, any mention of this preference?
 
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