By Robert M. Utley, Maps by Peter H. Dana

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “For Americans, the history of the Trans-Mississippi West dawned with the nineteenth century. The Louisiana Purchase opened fresh vistas beyond a western boundary that traced the course of the mighty river bisecting most of the North American continent. President Thomas Jefferson knew not what he had bought from Napoleon, but he had long been interested in lifting the veil from the western reaches of the continent. Spaniards, Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Russians knew some of the geography, but mainly around the fringes. Indian tribes, their cul- tures reflecting the immense geographical diversity, knew the heartland. All, in their respective regions, had imprinted human history on the land- scape, the Europeans for three centuries, the natives for millennia. For the first half of the nineteenth century, much of the young American republic's energies concentrated on discovering and recording the contours of this immense land.”

Lincoln And London. University Of Nebraska Press. 2004. 413p.