My new book, This Vast Enterprise: A New History of Lewis & Clark, comes out on April 21. I spent five years on it, finding new documents and a new way to tell this beloved story.
My publisher remains Avid Reader Press, a terrific imprint of Simon & Schuster, and their website has all sorts of purchase options.
Here are some reviews of This Vast Enterprise:
- “Immensely engaging.” — Wall Street Journal
- “This is vivid, character-based history. . . . A ripping good read.” — Boston Globe
- “A revelatory take on Lewis and Clark.” — Christian Science Monitor
The header to this website is a painting by George Catlin, available for free at the Smithsonian. Thanks in part to that institution, which remains a national treasure, This Vast Enterprise features more than seventy full-color images and more than twenty new maps. I hope you get a chance to examine a physical copy, perhaps at your local bookstore. Or come say hello this spring during my book tour!
One thing I found in my research is that Catlin’s view, captured only a couple decades after the expedition, is almost certainly the same view the captains had when they met the Lakota in the fall of 1804. This is as close as we’ll ever come to seeing what Lewis and Clark saw — and what Black Buffalo and the Partisan saw, too.
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Craig Fehrman 