The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 14 September 1999
by Stephen E. Ambrose
When I was in fourth grade, I had my introduction to an adventure story which would haunt my grade-school years, but one which I wouldn't give much thought to again until driving across the northern United States several years ago. All American school children learn of this great exploratory adventure up the Missouri and across the Rockies to the Pacific. But few of us ever learn about it in the detail offered in this very accessible book. Stephen Ambrose tells us the life of Meriwether Lewis, the adventurer who was at the head of the remarkable Lewis and Clark team. And he tells us about Lewis' relationship with Thomas Jefferson, without whose foresight, this adventure would never have occurred. By no means exhaustive, this is still a fascinating story, full of rich detail that we all miss in school. Ambrose, confining his story to Lewis, still tells the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition (1803-1806), and of its impact on America at the time. He opens with its history, the history of the politics of the region, and the personalities that made it what it was. We don't read much of Clark, Sacagawea (who is now on our gold dollar coin with the child she bore on the expedition), or the other members of this historic party, but we do get a complete overview of the story from the point of view of this one troubled character. Lewis was, in many ways, a great man. But he was human and deeply flawed, as well. We go from the triumph of the expedition, on which only one man died, to his personal failure as governor of the territory and his subsequent suicide. (How many of us really knew Lewis committed suicide from our history books?) There are many quotes from the remarkable Lewis and Clark journals. Many detailed references. But this is a popular text, highly accessible if somewhat lacking in detail. The author puts a welcome personal touch in the text, with some, but not too much, interpretation of the events, such as the tragic misunderstandings between the exploring whites and the native tribes. One can feel the transition between the great story of the American Revolution, and the great tragic story of the opening of the American West.