Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival Author: Peter Stark | Language: English | ISBN:
B00DB361N8 | Format: EPUB
Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival Description
In the tradition of The Lost City of Z and Skeleton in the Zahara, Astoria is the thrilling, true-adventure tale of the 1810 Astor Expedition, an epic, now forgotten, three-year journey to forge an American empire on the Pacific Coast. Peter Stark offers a harrowing saga in which a band of explorers battled nature, starvation, and madness to establish the first American settlement in the Pacific Northwest and opened up what would become the Oregon trail, permanently altering the nation's landscape and its global standing.
Six years after Lewis and Clark's began their journey to the Pacific Northwest, two of the Eastern establishment's leading figures, John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson, turned their sights to founding a colony akin to Jamestown on the West Coast and transforming the nation into a Pacific trading power. Author and correspondent for Outside magazine Peter Stark recreates this pivotal moment in American history for the first time for modern readers, drawing on original source material to tell the amazing true story of the Astor Expedition.
Unfolding over the course of three years, from 1810 to 1813, Astoria is a tale of high adventure and incredible hardship in the wilderness and at sea. Of the more than one hundred-forty members of the two advance parties that reached the West Coast—one crossing the Rockies, the other rounding Cape Horn—nearly half perished by violence. Others went mad. Within one year, the expedition successfully established Fort Astoria, a trading post on the Columbia River. Though the colony would be short-lived, it opened provincial American eyes to the potential of the Western coast and its founders helped blaze the Oregon Trail.
- File Size: 3272 KB
- Print Length: 384 pages
- Publisher: Ecco (March 4, 2014)
- Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00DB361N8
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,160 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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- #1
in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Hiking & Camping > Instructional - #1
in Books > History > World > Expeditions & Discoveries - #1
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Sports > Outdoors & Nature > Hiking & Camping > Instructional
A riveting tale of part of our American history that many people would not know without the introduction of this true story beautifully written by Peter Stark. I've been to Astoria , a town that I always thought was smoldering with some long forgotten history..but at the same time a town that seemed like it never caught on! Now I know why. The history and the way this author wove it thru the book, bringing it alive, as if it happened yesterday, ways amazing. And, tremendous research with regard to the people involved , surprising and balanced tenure , not didactic, , insightful observations, what a wonderful early American legacy otherwise largely forgotten.
By Susan Gebhardt
Peter Stark deserves a great amount of praise for this remarkable book. Some of the finest literary work grows from the roots of intriguing events in human history that are not well known or remembered. Set at the beginning of the 1800s and based on a historical expedition which was championed by Thomas Jefferson and funded by John Jacob Astor, known as the Astor Expedition, it is the excellently researched and written story of two groups of explorers who set out to establish a new American colony and shipping port in the unexplored Pacific Northwest. The hardships and challenges these groups encountered along their way reads like an intense, action-adventure. As I was reading this book I couldn't help but imagine what a great script it would make for an award-winning movie. This lost chapter in America's formation will gather and hold the imagination of most readers. Definitely Five Stars.
By Robert Steven Thomas
TOP 1000 REVIEWER
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