Boone: A Biography (Shannon Ravenel Books) | 
|  | | | Title: | Boone: A Biography (Shannon Ravenel Books) | | Author: | Robert Morgan | | Publisher: | Algonquin Books | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 23 September, 2008 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 1565126157 / 9781565126152 | | List Price: | $18.95 | | You Save: | $6.06 | | Amazon Price: | $12.89 | |
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Product Description
The story of Daniel Boone is the story of America—its ideals, its promise, its romance, and its destiny. Bestselling, critically acclaimed author Robert Morgan reveals the complex character of a frontiersman whose heroic life was far stranger and more fascinating than the myths that surround him.
This rich, authoritative biography offers a wholly new perspective on a man who has been an American icon for more than two hundred years—a hero as important to American history as his more political contemporaries George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. Extensive endnotes, cultural and historical background material, and maps and illustrations underscore the scope of this distinguished and immensely entertaining work.
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Customer Reviews:
• An Excellent Account Of The Man And The Legend 23 November, 2008
This is a fine historical account of an American legend that really personalizes the man beind the legend. The scope of his life and his extended family are amazing. An entertaining, informative and enjoyable book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3MYAVLMBFXH64
• Frontier Life 24 June, 2008
An over long development of the life of a very significant figure in American (Kentucky) history. Speculation as to Boone's thoughts and feelings while traveling the wilderness alone are pure nonsense. Division of labor, Boone was the hunter, hence the other members of the community depended upon his skills for meat. It doesn't take but a few months for wildlife to flee from an area when humans invade their territory.
One of the funniest bits for me was when Morgan discussed the pollution of the Ohio river. In the 1750s? Bambi should not have pissed in the river.
Extract historical fact from a modern tendency to humanize personages in terms of current concepts and this could be a valuable book. For Boone and his contemporaries the essence of their lives was survival.
Writing as a Small BusinessSins of the Fathers: A Brewster County NovelGuns Across the Rio: A Texas Ranger in Old MexicoNatchez Above The River: A Family's Survival In The Civil WarUnder the Liberty Oak
- Reviewed by customer ID: AN8C7BGR98HLN
• An Icon Become Human 01 June, 2008
What strikes me as the greatest accomplishment of Robert Morgan in this biography of Daniel Boone is stripping away the myth and describing the person. I read a recent biography of Kit Carson that did the same thing. As such, both authors have done readers a great service.
Boone himself was a complex figure. He was a great success as a trapper and explorer. He routinely failed as a businessman and land speculator. He was lucky and he made his own luck. Despite being so well known to Americans, he died in Missouri at 86 and pretty much broke. His story was such that he was mentioned in the works of poets and writers. James Fennimore Cooper based a number of novels on his life and exploits, Natty Bumppo, "la longue carabine," the Pathfinder, Hawkeye [in Last of the Mohicans], and so on.
The book does a nice job of relating his family background, his childhood, and his increasing interest in trapping, hunting, and exploring. He fought in the French and Indian War (serving with Braddock on this ill-starred campaign) and the Revolutionary War. He was instrumental in helping the process of development of American interests in Kentucky. His relationship with Native Americans was complex. He respected them and developed some friendships and was even adopted after his capture at one point. But he also fought against them.
His business efforts, designed to provide security for his family, routinely ended in failure. Land that he thought had been given him in Kentucky was lost through court action; he once lost $20,000 as he was going back to Virginia to deposit this and finalize land claims; and so on.
And, a stunning realization. . . . He went with a group of explorers and visited the Yellowstone area while he was in his mid 70s! How many 70 year olds would be able to cross half a continent in 1809 and return?
This book is a wonderfully balanced view of the life of Boone. For those who want to know the man more than the myth, this is most rewarding. Some nice features: a genealogy at the outset, a brief chronology of Boone's life. More maps would have been useful, to place his travels and life in a broader geographic perspective. Nonetheless, a fine work.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AQQLWCMRNDFGI
• Are We Serious?!! 17 October, 2008
I cannot tell a lie...I read but the first couple of chapters of this book. So this "review" is actually more of a warning. It's difficult to fathom where all the positive opinions of this book come from. I had to stop reading, as I do when a book/author loses all credibility.
From what I could see in reading Morgan's description of the early years of Daniel Boone, the author's "bricks" of fact were held together by "mortar" of fluff and hyperbole. It is useful to understand that much of Morgan's prior literary contribution is fiction and poetry. It seems that he used his inventive mind to create the version of Boone that suited his idea of the man, rather than as perhaps he really was. And he seems so caught up in creating Boone in his image, that he becomes blind to the repetition spewing out of his pen. There was one section about Boone's growing affinity for spending time in the backwoods where the author repeated himself three times before it was time to turn the next page!
Also coming to mind when reading Morgan's "setup" of the book...how we're going to read about the "real" person...there seems to be a trend with historical biographies, both in print and on channels like The History Channel, to "debunk" the myths surrounding such larger-than-life figures as Daniel Boone. HELLO!! Maybe our society NEEDS mythical figures and heroes to drive our emotions. That's another reason I stopped reading this book. I don't want Disney's version either. But perhaps I'll check out one of the previous Boone biographies that Morgan oddly promotes in his book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3PII19628APM
• Will Not Recommend 06 October, 2008
I was looking forward to this book. But after a few chapters I realized the author was writing this with a 2007 view of the world without truly understanding the frontier. I was disappointed when the author had to give a sexual meaning to events such as picnics,s ex in small crowded, homes and Boone's long ventures into the forest as a metaphor to deflowering a woman. This book tries to make Boone human but I just take it as an effort to bring down the man and his legend. Cannot recommend this book without suggesting you read others to get a well rounded view of Boone.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1YM5IOEE3BKC4
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