From the New York Times bestselling author of Band of Brothers and D-Day, the definitive book on Lewis and Clark’s exploration of the Louisiana Purchase, the most momentous expedition in American history and one of the great adventure stories of all time. In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a voyage up the Missouri River to the Rockies, over the mountains, down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, and back. Lewis and his partner, Captain William Clark, made the first map of the trans-Mississippi West, provided invaluable scientific data on the flora and fauna of the Louisiana Purchase territory, and established the American claim to Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Ambrose has pieced together previously unknown information about weather, terrain, and medical knowledge at the time to provide a vivid backdrop for the expedition.

It's cool, for sure, in that you can instantly download books that you read about or are referred to—and it's so much easier to bring a Kindle on the road than a. Some of my favorite books that have kept me company at home, on the road, and backstage: Stephen Ambrose, Undaunted Courage: Ambrose is most famous for his.

Lewis is supported by a rich variety of colorful characters, first of all Jefferson himself, whose interest in exploring and acquiring the American West went back thirty years. Next comes Clark, a rugged frontiersman whose love for Lewis matched Jefferson’s. There are numerous Indian chiefs, and Sacagawea, the Indian girl who accompanied the expedition, along with the French-Indian hunter Drouillard, the great naturalists of Philadelphia, the French and Spanish fur traders of St. Louis, John Quincy Adams, and many more leading political, scientific, and military figures of the turn of the century. High adventure, high politics, suspense, drama, and diplomacy combine with high romance and personal tragedy to make this outstanding work of scholarship as readable as a novel. Feb 12, 1996 – Ambrose has written prolifically about men who were larger than life: Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Colonel Custer. Here he takes on half of the two-headed hero of American exploration: Meriwether Lewis.

Ambrose, his wife and five children have followed the footsteps of the Lewis and Clark expedition for 20 summers, in the course of which the explorer has become a friend of the Ambrose family; the author's affection shines through this narrative. Meriwether Lewis, as secretary to Thomas Jefferson and living in the White House for two years, got his education by being apprenticed to a great man. Their friendship is at the center of this account.

Jefferson hand-picked Lewis for the great cross-country trek, and Lewis in turn picked William Clark to accompany him. The two men shook hands in Clarksville, Ohio, on October 14, 1803, then launched their expedition. The journals of the expedition, most written by Clark, are one of the treasures of American history.

Here we learn that the vital boat is behind schedule; the boat builder is always drunk, but he's the only one available. Lewis acts as surveyor, builder and temperance officer in his effort to get his boat into the river. Alcohol continues to cause him problems both with the men of his expedition and later, after his triumphant return, in his own life, which ended in suicide at the age of 35. Without adding a great deal to existing accounts, Ambrose uses his skill with detail and atmosphere to dust off an icon and put him back on the trail west.

History Book Club main selection; BOMC split selection; QPB alternate; author tour. © Publishers Weekly.

For other uses, see. Madoc, also spelled Madog, ab Owain Gwynedd was, according to, a Welsh prince who sailed to in 1170, over three hundred years before 's voyage in 1492. According to the story, he was a son of, and took to the sea to flee internecine violence at home. The 'Madoc story' legend evidently evolved out of a medieval tradition about a Welsh hero's sea voyage, to which only allusions survive. However, it attained its greatest prominence during the, when English and Welsh writers wrote of the claim that Madoc had come to the Americas as an assertion of prior discovery, and hence legal possession, of North America by the. The 'Madoc story' remained popular in later centuries, and a later development asserted that Madoc's voyagers had intermarried with local Native Americans, and that their Welsh-speaking descendants still live somewhere in the United States.

These 'Welsh Indians' were credited with the construction of a number of landmarks throughout the, and a number of white travelers were inspired to go look for them. The 'Madoc story' has been the subject of much speculation in the context of possible. No conclusive archaeological proof of such a man or his voyages has been found in the New or Old World; however, speculation abounds connecting him with certain sites, such as, located on the Ohio River at Fourteen Mile Creek near. George Catlin thought the Mandan bull boat to be similar to the Welsh. On 26 November 1608, Peter Wynne, a member of Captain 's exploration party to the villages of the, speakers above the falls of the in, wrote a letter to, informing him that some members of Newport's party believed the pronunciation of the Monacans' language resembled 'Welch', which Wynne spoke, and asked Wynne to act as interpreter.

The Monacan were among those non-Algonquian tribes collectively referred to by the Algonquians as 'Mandoag'. Another early settler to claim an encounter with a Welsh-speaking Indian was the Reverend Morgan Jones, who told, 's deputy, that he had been captured in 1669 in by a tribe of called the. According to Jones, the chief spared his life when he heard Jones speak Welsh, a tongue he understood. Jones' report says that he then lived with the Doeg for several months preaching the in Welsh and then returned to the where he recorded his adventure in 1686. The historian comments, 'This is a complete and may have been intended as a hoax'. There is no evidence for there having been Doeg among the Tuscarora. Plaque at showing where the Daughters of the American Revolution supposed that Madoc had landed in 1170 A.D.

Legacy [ ] The township of, and the nearby village of are both named in the prince's memory, as are several local guest houses and pubs throughout North America and the United Kingdom. The Welsh town of (meaning 'Madoc's Port' in English) and the village of ('Madoc's Town') in the county of are actually named after the industrialist and, their principal developer, and additionally influenced by the legendary son of Owain Gwynedd, Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd. The Prince Madog, a research vessel owned by the and P&O Maritime, set sail on 26 July 2001, on her maiden voyage.

A plaque at in Georgia recounts a nineteenth-century interpretation of the ancient stone wall that gives the site its name. The plaque repeats Tennessee governor John Sevier's statement that the Cherokees believed 'a people called Welsh' had built a fort on the mountain long ago to repel Indian attacks. October 2015, the plaque has now been changed with no reference to Madoc or the Welsh.

In 1953, the erected a plaque at on the shores of, reading: In memory of Prince Madoc a Welsh explorer who landed on the shores of Mobile Bay in 1170 and left behind with the Indians the Welsh language. The plaque was removed by the Alabama Parks Service in 2008 and put in storage. Since then there has been much controversy in getting the plaque reinstalled.

References [ ] Notes [ ]. • Drivers Para Placa Mãe Ecs P4vmm2. 'And after he had returned home and declared the pleasant and frutefull countreys that he had seene without inhabitants, and upon the contrarye parte what barreyne and wilde grounde his bretherne and nevewes did murther one an other for, he prepared a number of shippes, and gote with suche men and women as were diserouse to lyve in quietness. And takinge his leave of his frends, toke his journey thytherwarde againe wherefore his is to be presupposed that he and his people enhabited parte of those countreys.' • 'The earliest existing fragments of the epic of 'Reynard the Fox' were written in Latin by Flemish priests, and about 1250 a very important version in Dutch was made by Willem the Minstrel, of whom it is unfortunate that we know no more, save that he was the translator of a lost romance, 'Madoc'.'

• 'An so his was by Britons longe afore discovered before eyther Colonus or Americus lead any Hispaniardes thyther.' • 'And at this tyme an other of Owen Gwynedhs sonnes, named Madocke, left the lande in contention betwixt his bretherne, and prepared certaine shippes, with men [and] munition, and sought adventures by the seas.

And sayled west levinge the cost of Irelande [so far] north that he came to a land unknown, where he sawe many starange things. And this lande most needs be some parte of that land the which the Hispaniardes do affirme them selves to be the first finders, sith Hannos tyme. For by reason and order of cosmosgraphie this lande to which Madoc came to, most needs bee somme parte of Nova Hispania, or Florida.' • 'This Madoc arriving in the Western country, unto the which he came, in the yeare 1170, left most of his people there: and returning back for more of his nation, acquaintance, and friends, to inhabite that faire and large countrie: went thither againe with ten sailes, as I find noted by Gutyn Owen.

I am of opinion that the land, where unto he came, was part of Mexico; the causes which make me to think so be these.' Citations [ ]. Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia.

Retrieved 31 March 2013. • Curran, Kelly (8 January 2008).. News and Tribune, Jeffersonville, Indiana. Retrieved 16 October 2011.

•, pp. 166–7. • ^ Fritze, Ronald H. Legend and lore of the Americas before 1492: an encyclopedia of visitors, explorers, and immigrants. Retrieved 31 March 2013. 12, page 90 •, p. 47.

•, p. 51, 76. •, p. 167-68. • MacMillan, Ken (April 2001). 'Discourse on history, geography, and law: John Dee and the limits of the British empire, 1576–80'. Canadian Journal of History. • Baron, Robert W.. Retrieved 3 April 2013.

• Fritze, Ronald H. Legend and lore of the Americas before 1492: an encyclopedia of visitors, explorers, and immigrants. Diablo 2 Gold Edition Free Download. The Library of Congress. Internet Archive.

Retrieved 3 April 2013. •, pp. 255–272. • Fritze, Ronald H. Legend and lore of the Americas before 1492: an encyclopedia of visitors, explorers, and immigrants. • 'News from Georgia' Kenfield, Chicago: 1907, Vol.

27, No.3, 99. • Knight, Lucian Lamar, 'Fort Mountain',. Lewis Publishing, Chicago: 1917, Vol. • Fritze, Ronald (21 March 2011)..

Encyclopedia of Alabama. Athens State University. Retrieved 1 April 2013. Bowen family web e-history files. Archived from on 13 January 2013.

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Retrieved 4 April 2013. Retrieved 3 April 2013. • Ginanni, Claudia (26 January 2006)..

Bryn Mawr Now. Bryn Mawr College. Retrieved 3 April 2013.

•, pp. 145–164. •, pp. 146–151. •, pp. 28, 29. What's in a Name. 3 April 2013.

Retrieved 3 April 2013. Retrieved 2 April 2013. Touring the Backroads of North and South Georgia. Native American Tour. Retrieved 3 April 2013. • Hambrick, Judd (18 May 2011).. Mobile, Alabama November 11, 1953.

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(15 February 1996).. Simon & Schuster.. • Bowers, Alfred (1 October 2004).. U of Nebraska Press.. • Bradshaw, Brendan (18 December 2003).. Cambridge University Press..

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• Curran, Bob (20 August 2010).. Pelican Publishing.. 'Prince Madoc and the discovery of America in 1477'.

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• Durrett, Reuben Thomas (1908).. Morton & Company (Incorporated) printers to the Filson Club. Retrieved 1 April 2013. • Fowler, Don D. (15 September 2010).. Utah Press, Universi.. • Franklin, Caroline (2003): 'The Welsh American Dream:, Robert Southey and the Madoc legend.'

In English romanticism and the Celtic world, ed. By Gerard Carruthers and Alan Rawes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Fritze, Ronald H. (15 May 2009).. Reaktion Books.. • Gaskell, Jeremy (2000).. Oxford University Press.. Retrieved 13 April 2013.

• Jefferson, Thomas (1903).. Issued under the auspices of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States. • Jones (1887).. • Kaufman, Will (31 March 2005).. • Llwyd, Humphrey; Williams, Ieuan (2002). • McClintock, James H. (31 October 2007)..

• Morison, Samuel Eliot (1971).. Retrieved 2 April 2013. • Mullaney, Steven (1995).. University of Michigan Press.. • Newman, Marshall T.

'The Blond Mandan: A Critical Review of an Old Problem'. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology. 6 (3 (Autumn, 1950)): 255–272.

• O'Neill, Michael (27 September 2007).. Retrieved 1 April 2013.

• Owen, Edward; Wilkins, Charles, Editor (2006) [December 1885].. The Red dragon, the national magazine of Wales. Vol. VIII no. 6.. CS1 maint: Extra text: authors list () • Powel, David (1811)..

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Laboratory of Archaeology, Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Retrieved 2 April 2013. • Wachtel, Michael (2011).. University of Wisconsin Pres.. Retrieved 1 April 2013. • Williams, David (1963)..

University of Wales Press. Retrieved 1 April 2013. • Williams, Gwyn A. Eyre Methuen.. Retrieved 2 April 2013. • Williams, John S.

Further reading [ ] Fiction [ ] • (1994): The Children of First Man. New York: Ballantine Books. • Winter, Pat (1990): Madoc.

New York: Bantam. • Winter, Pat (1991): Madoc's Hundred.

New York: Bantam. • Knight, Bernard, 'Madoc, Prince of America', New York: St Martin's Press (1977) • (1999): 'Circle of Stones'. New York: St. Martin's Press.

• Lee Waldo, Anna (2001): Circle of Stars. New York: St. Martin's Press. • (1978): A Swiftly Tilting Planet. New York: Dell Publishing. • (2009), 'Come-From-Aways,' #76.

• (2005): With Madog to the New World. • (2009): The Splendor Falls. Delacorte Books for Young Readers. • (2017): '1170 - The Legend of Prince Madoc.' Juvenile [ ] • Thomas, Gwyn and Margaret Jones (2005): Madog. Talybont: Y Lolfa Cyf. Poetry [ ] • Muldoon, Paul (1990): Madoc: A Mystery.

London: Faber and Faber. – New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. • Southey, Robert (1805): Madoc. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and A. Constable and Co. External links [ ].