Synopses & Reviews
They were idealistic, scheming, and visionary. They were daring, willing to take great risks in exchange for tremendous payoffs. They were builders and, at the same time, destroyers. They were the men and women who opened up the Oregon country and California to mass settlement changing the nation forever.
In this dramatic narrative, acclaimed writer and popular historian Michael Golay brings to life the traders, trappers, explorers, and missionaries who withstood seemingly insurmountable odds to seize a Pacific Empire for their nation. Drawing from letters, diaries, and both published and unpublished memoirs, The Tide of Empire is a colorful chronicle of indomitable characters, moral ambiguities, and the clash of Native American and European cultures.
Golay explores the consequences of westward expansion, examining the transformational power both creative and destructive of American energy and ideals. Were these pioneers motives pure or tainted? It is for the reader to decide, as these early settlers blindly certain of their values pave the way for a quarter-million men, women, and children to follow, hacking roads through mountains, rerouting rivers, cutting down lush forests, and dredging harbors, assured of their right to exploit the land. Golay deftly balances the unintended consequences of good intentions with cultural arrogance, as the Native Americans and Mexicans of the Pacific fall beneath the footsteps of the march of conquest.
Along the way, we meet the complex individuals at the heart of the story, including the aggressively entrepreneurial missionary Jason Lee; John Charles Fremont, who may have carried secret government orders to spark a revolt in California; Nathaniel Wyeth, the resourceful adventurer who, in two cross-country voyages, clearly established the Oregon Trail; and Narcissa Prentiss, who longed for the heroic life of a missionary and, along with her husband Marcus Whitman, unwittingly set in motion the destruction of the Cayuse tribes way of life.
A compellingly told, fast-paced account of exploration and adventure, The Tide of Empire will engage every reader from start to finish from the Euroamerican discovery of the fabled turbulent Great River of the West to the silencing of those once wild and bountiful waters...all in the name of progress.
Review
"The quality of the writing and the depth of the research make this book a valuable read for anyone interested in 19th-century American history." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Golay offers a good picture of the trials and tribulations faced by the early settlers in Oregon and shows their relationship with Hudson's Bay Company." Library Journal
Synopsis
This vivid narrative of the American conquest of the Pacific Coast depicts the dramatic saga of the men and women who opened up the Oregon country and California to mass settlement, changing the landscape of our country forever.
Synopsis
A vivid tableau of the American conquest of the Pacific Coast
"With Broughtons expedition, the Americans and the British had posted competing claims to a vast expanse of the Pacific Northwest. The area in contention would encompass all of present Oregon and Washington and parts of Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and British Columbia. Robert Gray, the dour Yankee trader, and William Broughton, the obscure British naval officer, nonentities both, sailed away from the misty coasts of the Columbia in 1792, never to return. They had no way of knowing, of course, how it would all end. But the breathtaking effrontery of their claims set in motion events of fateful consequence, touching off a half-century of trade and diplomatic rivalry, a flood of Euroamerican settlement, and the displacement and virtual destruction of the immemorial inhabitants of what the contestants would come to call the Oregon Country."
from THE TIDE OF EMPIRE
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. 363-368) and index.
About the Author
Michael Golay, a popular historian, has written five books about ninteenth-century American history, including To Gettysburg and Beyond and A Ruined Land (Wiley), for which he was a finalist for the prestigious Lincoln prize. He lives in Exeter, New Hampshire.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations.
Author’s Note.
Prologue: Columbia’s River.
1. Ways West.
2. The Road to India.
3. Arcadia.
4. The Missionary Impulse.
5. The Great Migration.
6. Manifest Destiny.
Epilogue: The Country of the Setting Sun.
Notes.
Bibliography.
Index.