The Undiscovered Country - by Paul Andrew Hutton (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

From the author of The Apache Wars, the true story of the American West, revealing how American ambition clashed with the realities of violence and exploitation

The epic of the American West became a tale of progress, redemption, and glorious conquest that came to shape the identity of a new nation. Over time a darker story emerged--one of ghastly violence and environmental spoliation that stained this identity.

The Undiscovered Country strips away the layers of myth to reveal the true story of this first epoch of American history. From the forests of Pennsylvania and Kentucky to the snow-crested California Sierras, and from the harsh deserts of the Southwest to the buffalo range of the Great Plains, Paul Andrew Hutton masterfully chronicles a story that defined America and its people. From Braddock's 1755 defeat to the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre, he unfolds a grand narrative steeped in romantic impulses and tragic consequences.

Hutton uses seven main protagonists--Daniel Boone, Red Eagle, Davy Crockett, Mangas Coloradas, Kit Carson, Sitting Bull, and William "Buffalo Bill" Cody--as the biographical threads by which to weave a tapestry across seven generations, revealing a story of heroic conquest and dark tragedy, of sacrifice and greed, and of man-made wonders and environmental ruin.

The American frontier movement has proven eternally fascinating around the world--the subject of countless books, paintings, poems, television shows, and films. The Undiscovered Country reveals the truth behind America's great creation myth.

Review Quotes

Praise for The Undiscovered Country:

"In The Undiscovered Country, Paul Andrew Hutton, America's most prominent Western historian, takes readers on a sharply observed journey through the continent's ever-beckoning West. Here are lively tales of Washington, Boone, Crockett, Frémont, Carson, and Cody, daring to explore new lands, or, for Cody, engage in and then work to preserve a grand American West, and all woven through the lives of people who knew that land first, Red Eagle, Mangas Coloradas, Cochise, Sitting Bull. The narrative is clever in concept, sweeping in scope, crisply written, and exhaustively documented. This is Hutton at his finest." --Paul L. Hedren, author of Sitting Bull's War

"When Hamlet speaks of 'the undiscovere'd country, ' he ponders what lies beyond death. For those enterprising would-be conquerors of North America, however, death was not in contemplation. Paul A. Hutton's new The Undiscovered Country offers an intimate look at those westering generations through the lives and fortunes of men whose ambitions and experiences, both triumphant and tragic, emblemed their times. From the perpetual frontiersmen Daniel Boone and David Crockett, to inevitable adversaries Red Eagle, Mangas Coloradas, and Sitting Bull, and on to the last of their "Wild West" ilk, Kit Carson and "Buffalo Bill" Cody, Hutton tells a powerful story, rich with texture, and solidly founded in the sources. Eschewing triumphalism and guilt alike, his narrative recovers the sense of what it was like for both American frontiersmen and Native Americans to experience the settlement of a continent." -William C. Davis, author of The Greatest Fury

"An epic telling of a history I thought I already knew. I was mistaken. No one threads the needle between the dark contradictions of American history with such breathtaking clarity, honesty and wit as Paul Andrew Hutton. He is the undisputed king of western history." --Bob Boze Bell, executive editor True West magazine

"The Undiscovered Country is one of those books that plunks you down and holds you in place for days. It's the sort of sweeping, multi-layered, character-driven narrative I fell in love with as a young reader and have been pining for ever since. Thank you Paul Hutton for not just a history lesson, but a lesson in writing history." --Stephen Harrigan, author of Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas

About the Author

Paul Andrew Hutton is the author of The Apache Wars. He is an American cultural historian, author, documentary writer, and television personality. He is also a professor of history at the University of New Mexico, a former executive director of the Western History Association, and former president of the Western Writers of America.