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Usually ships in 1 business days | | | | | | Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize. Across the Wide Missouri tells the compelling story of the climax and decline of the Rocky Mountain fur trade during the 1830s. More than a history, it portrays the mountain fur trade as a way of business and a way of life, vividly illustrating how it shaped the expansion of the American West. | | | |
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| | Product Details | | Author: | Bernard DeVoto | | Paperback: | 480 pages | | Publisher: | Mariner Books | | Publication Date: | September 01, 1998 | | Language: | English | | ISBN: | 0395924979 | | Package Length: | 8.1 inches | | Package Width: | 5.4 inches | | Package Height: | 1.3 inches | | Package Weight: | 1.05 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 16 reviews |
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review:
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 Densely Detailed Account Energized by a Lively, Robust Voice Nov 02, 2009
Bernard De Voto's meticulously detailed account of the last days of the fur trade reveal the lives of the sometimes inspired, often desperate, original survivors, not the faux survivors we now watch on "reality" TV. Drawing largely from journals and records of the traders -- and noting spots where he doubts their credibility -- De Voto creates a compelling picture of the goings-on between the fur men and various native Plains tribes, a relationship that in many respects confounds our current understanding. It seems it was more varied and complex then we've been led to believe. Sometimes an uneasy friendship and respect prevailed, sometimes murder, but often it seemed both native peoples and fur traders were striving to exploit each other for all they could get. Most particularly he distinguishes between the tribes, their customs and proclivities. Clearly a fur trader's survival often depended on his ability to understand these differences. But De Voto's over-arching story of survival -- and, ultimately, defeat -- involves the brutal competition between the fur companies as each attempts to rule the trade. De Voto's voice is smart, robust, sometimes quite humorous. (Watch for irony.) However, coming to us from an age before the Civil Rights Movement, before the Women's Movement, the author does not share the benefits of our deeper, subtler understanding. That's the bad news. On the good side, he writes without self-censorship, uncurtailed by the obedience contemporary historians must show to the various academic conventions of our era.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Real Mountain Man Book!!! Jul 21, 2007
Living in Colorado, and having hiked and driven the western part of the United States, I think this book is great. It tells the story of Mountain Men and the areas they covered. The adventures they lived, and the skill it took to survive. What legends of the West!
5 of 9 found the following review helpful:
 NEEDS WORK Feb 01, 2006
I AGREE W/NAICHE. AUTHOR HAS(HAD) GOOD COMMAND OF SUBJECT MATTER BUT PRESENTS IT IN A MADDENINGLY DISORGANIZED MANNER. POORLY INTRODUCED PERSONAGES & EVENTS SEGUE THROUGH EACH CHAPTER NOT TO BE ADEQUATELY DISCUSSED (IF AT ALL) UNTIL MANY PAGES LATER. I FOUND MYSELF FLIPPING AHEAD & BACK IN FRUSTRATION TRYING TO MAINTAIN CONTINUITY. MR. DeVOTO SEEMS MORE CONCERNED WITH DEMONSTRATING HIS LITERARY WIT THAN CLEARLY PRESENTING HIS SUBJECT MATTER. I FOUND ROBERT UTLEY'S "A LIFE WILD AND PERILOUS" FAR EASIER TO READ & LEARN FROM.
25 of 25 found the following review helpful:
Wagh! Jun 28, 2005
Across the Wide Missouri
Mr. DeVoto has a passion for this subject and a passion for the characters that live in it.
Here are some excerpts from the book:
"There were few delicate feeders in the mountains...The river tribes liked the green, putrid flesh of buffalo drowned while crossing the ice and hauled ashore weeks later, `so ripe, so tender, that very little boiling is required.' They ate the kidneys raw... the white man would eat the liver raw as soon as it was taken; he seasoned it with the gall or sometimes with gunpowder...he had no more tableware than his belt knife - gravy, juices and blood running down his face, forearms and shirt. He wolfed the meat and never reached repletion. Eight pounds a day was standard ration for Hudson Bay employees [but often eat twice that amount]...melted fat was gulped by the pint. Kidney fat could be drunk without limit...Hump and boss boil in a kettle, cracked marrow bones sizzle by the fire...Camp is pitched by a small creek or a rushing mountain river...Here is the winesap air of the high places, the clear, green sky of evening fading to a dark that brings the stars within arm's length, the cottonwoods along the creek rustling in the wind. The smell of meat has brought wolves and coyotes almost to the circle of firelight. They skulk just beyond it; sometimes a spurt of flame will turn will turn their eyes to gold...Horses and mules crop the bunch grass at the end of their lariats or browse on leaves along the creek. The firelight flares and fades in the wind's rhythm on the faces of men in whose minds are the vistas and the annuls of the entire West."
If you are yearning for a dry narrative of the fur trade, this is not your book. This book gives you a feel for the land and a feel for the kinds of men involved in the fur trade. It gives you a feel for the hardships that they faced, the cutthroat business practices of the trade and how instrumental these men were to opening up the west for settlement. He does not sanitize history or historical figures. He presents the good and the bad of both the individual fur traders and the various Indian tribes that were most closely linked to the fur trade.
As it turns out, this is not a simple story to tell or to organize into a linear narrative. There were many different characters and crosscurrents cutting through the entire period. He weaves this story together with the sinew provided by the movements of a few of the most important mountain men: Jim Bridger, Tom Fitzpatrick, Joe Meek, Bill and Milton Sublette and Kit Carson.
He runs another colorful thread through the story made of missionaries. These are clearly the most foolish, most spiteful and most disagreeable people in the narrative. Some of them are also the most well-intentioned and tragic characters in the grand story. Of the missionaries' desire to convert the Nez Perce and Flathead Indians to Christianity, he says, "[Nez Perce] were superior Indians, they made no trouble, they liked and admired white men...Their desire for instruction in the mysteries was genuine and paramount, as clean as the desire of these Christians to give them what they wanted. Both desires were simple and altogether hopeless...The Indians receiving instruction were men of the age of polished stone...They tried, both Indians and whites. There they stood, the seekers and the bearers of truth...the sincerity of these Indians' desire for religious instruction could not be doubted." And yet this first wave of missionaries met with frustration, failure and murder.
But the primary and repeated organizational thread that runs through this story is a fascinating and completely unlikely man named William Drummond Stewart. This man won the respect and deep friendship of all the great mountain men. He was kind, generous and good humored. Captain William Drummond Stewart of the British Army "was in his thirty-seventh year. He was the brother of Sir John Archibald Stewart, eighteenth of Grandtully and sixth baronet, and was next in succession to him...He went through the Hundred days with his regiment and fought at Waterloo." He traveled the prairies and the mountains in comfort, elegance and style. He was as tough, as adventurous and as skillful as any of the mountain men. Yet there was not even a hint of royal superiority about him.
Mr. DeVoto is a magnificent writer. If you are looking for an outstanding overview of the fur trade, this is your book. He also provides fascinating notes in the appendix and an extensive bibliography for those who are interested in further reading.
5 of 6 found the following review helpful:
 Great concept but poorly executed Mar 20, 2005
DeVoto's biggest problem is the confusing manner in which he presents his story. There is a wealth of information in this book, but it will take a determined reader to decipher and translate just what DeVoto is trying to say and you just might find yourself re-reading paragraphs more often than not. I'm surprised his editor didn't force a rewrite. Fur trade novice's beware, this book is for those with more than a passing interest in the topic. But again, there is a wealth of information here if you have the time and patience to give this book.
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