"Undaunted Courage" by Stephen E. Ambrose (1996)

Good old Ambrose.

Man, you miss this guy. You've read lots of Ambrose's books before, "D-Day", "Citizen Soldiers", and "Band of Brothers" to name a few. This is the author who cemented your love of military history, specifically WWII, in your heart. You will probably remember the day he died for the rest of your life. This was the first non-WWII book of his that you'd ever read. You picked it up because your cousin, Eric, said he was reading it and the thought of one of your best friends having read an Ambrose book before you bothered the crap out of you. There is that old "gotta be the first one there" syndrome again. You really need to work on that, man. It's not pretty.

This book is about the Lewis and Clark expedition. It follows Meriwether Lewis (the book's main character) from his youthful beginnings to his death. William Clark, Thomas Jefferson, Sacagawea, York (Clark's slave) and George Drouillard (a hunter-trapper, woodsman, and scout of French-Canadian and Shawnee descent) play charming and often pivotal co-starring roles along the way.

Now this book has good maps! Six different ones strategically placed throughout the book as the famous expedition unfolded. You promptly dog-eared every map page so that you could quickly flip to them at the appropriate time to orient your Eagle Scout brain in the map and also on the squiggly lines representing the path the expedition took. You did this a lot while reading the book because you really really like maps. Yeah, your thing with maps is weird too.

This is a big book, over 500 pages with a font size so small that Mom actually refused to read it (one of the few times she has ignored your book recommendations). It is a big book, but it is a long story so that makes sense.

The idea for the expedition was conceived by none other than Thomas Jefferson himself in 1785, even before the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. During the late 1700's there were many entities racing to be the first to explore the Pacific Northwest in order to establish trading bases with the natives there. Beaver pelts were in impossibly high demand throughout the world, and this region had more beavers than we can really conceive of today.The Spanish, the French, the British and even the Russians had all begun to jockey for influence in the region but after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 (in which Napolean sold the French claims to the massive territory) President Jefferson kicked his plans into high gear. He was determined to create a United States that spanned the continent. Trade moved by water routes back then and finding a water route from the Atlantic to the Pacific was the ostensible goal of the expedition.

One quick side note to explain why water ways were so important; when Jefferson took the Oath of Office in 1801, "Two-thirds of the people (of the United States) lived within fifty miles of tidewater. Only four roads crossed the Appalachian mountains..." also, "The United States was only eighteen years old, had itself come into existence by an act of rebellion and secession, had changed its form of government just twelve years earlier and... it seemed unlikely that one nation could govern an entire continent." But, more fascinatingly, "Nothing moved faster than the speed of a horse," and, "Nothing had ever moved any faster and, as far as Jefferson's contemporaries were able to tell, nothing ever would."

One hundred years later, when Woodrow Wilson took the same Oath, humans flew for the first time. In that intervening century, trains and telegraphs were invented. Human could communicate over vast distances virtually at the speed of light. One hundred years after that, humans had a permanent space station in orbit, had been to the moon a dozen times, had created the internet, and were planning on visiting Mars within the next fifty years. This thought fascinated you for weeks (and probably still does). Ten thousand years of human evolution produce almost no major change in technology until the 17th Century. And since then technology has exploded at a geometric rate! It's just crazy!

Anyway, Back to the book review! One of the things that was really brought to light in the book was how utterly dependent on the natives the expedition was, and I don't just mean dependent on Sacajawea. Everywhere they went (especially when they camped for the winters) they relied on trade and good relations with the tribes around them. The men of the expedition took part in ceremonies with the tribes, ate the food the tribes provided, and had sex with their women (most of the men returned from the trip with raging cases of Syphilis). Not to impugn the impressive skills inherent in the men who embarked on the trip, but without the natives providing the expedition with sustenance and guidance, Lewis and Clark would never have lived to see the Rockies, much less the Pacific.

The two co-captains were phenomenal leaders. They drove their men to feats that were considered near impossible and they accomplished their mission (even though no all-water passageway from one ocean to the other exists). They established a strong American presence in contested territory, confirmed the actual borders of our nation, and discovered hundred of species of plants and animals new to the world of Western science. But, even so, it truly was a team effort. Sacejawea translating and smoothing relations with new tribes, Drouillard hunting and scouting ahead, York (the slave) intriguing and entertaining the fascinated Indians.

The moments where translation was required were particularly funny. With so many different languages involved they often ended up reading something like, "...a native would speak to Sacajawea, she would speak  to Charbonneau (her husband), who would translate to Drouillard, who could then relay the meaning of the original message to Lewis or Clark." It all reminded you of those games of 'telephone' you used to play as kid, and it is a miracle anyone knew what was going on at all!

The book has and adventurous quality, a hum of excitement throughout it that kept you turning pages. Ambrose's enthusiasm is infectious. While reading his breathless descriptions of the trail the expedition took around Yellowstone national park's future northern borders, you remembered being a kid in the park and it made you want to go back there as soon as you can to experience it again, this time through new eyes.

But you will never be able to see the world that they saw. The descriptions of North America before Lewis and Clark is as close to Heaven on Earth as you can get. Herds of buffalo and pronghorn from horizon to horizon, miles of the Missouri river covered by a blanket of floating swan feathers from migrating flocks molting in unison, unexplored wilderness stretching for a thousand miles in every direction; these things are gone. But it feels like the book helped you reclaim some of that inheritance.

The part of the book after the expedition is over begins to drag a bit, understandably, but it is all a build-up to a moment of historical melodrama that shocked you. How could you not have known of such a prominent suicide? How could you have never heard of that? That's what is so great about being a student of history, no matter how much you think you know, there always something more out there to learn!

"Undaunted Courage" brought to life some of America's greatest names, Thomas Jefferson, William Clark, Sacajawea, Merriwether Lewis. But it also brought to life America's ancient past, a past that is often romanticized and whose loss is often lamented. But don't despair. Stephen Ambrose's unyielding sense of wonder and always accessible prose guided you to a place where you were able to revisit a long gone era and walk with men who truly were explorers in their prime on the adventure of a lifetime.

On to the next book!

-Sam