BEST BUY BOOKS®
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FRONTIER
Laura Ingalls Wilder: Teacher
and Author
Author: Raatma, Lucia
Publisher/Year: Facts On File (2001)
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 0894343750
Item ID: FR-13264
Size/Weight: 8.3 x 6.1 x 0.6 / 0.75
Pages: 128
Date Added: 10/20/06
$25.00
Description
Ferguson Career Biographies tell the life stories of some of the world's most
famous figures and emphasize each person's career development. This book is
about Laura Ingalls, a western territory pioneer, a teacher, a storyteller, and
an author of Little House series, which became the basis for television series,
Little House on the Prairie during the 70s and 80s.
Pathfinder: John Charles
Fremont and the Course of American Empire
Item code: FR- 62006
ISBN: 0809075563
Authors: Tom Chaffin.
Pages/Length: 560
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Publication Date: 2002
Format: Paperback
Primary Subject: History
Date Added: 10/13/2006
Price: $18.00
The career of John Charles Frémont (1813-90) exemplifies the breadth of American expansionism, from its 18th-century origins through its culmination in the Gilded Age. Tom Chaffin's biography demonstrates the celebrated American explorer and mapper's importance to the history of the American empire, and his role in shattering long-held myths about the ecology and habitability of the American West as a key player in the federal project of Western exploration and conquest. Frémont's expeditions between 1838 and 1854 captured the public's imagination, inspired Americans to accept their nation's destiny as a vast continental empire, and earned him the sobriquet of "the Pathfinder." More than explorer though, Frémont was also an entrepreneur, abolitionist, Civil War general, two-time Republican presidential candidate, and Gilded Age aristocrat. Chaffin brings this figure to life while offering insight into the conflicts, tensions, and contradictions of America's lust for empire and its conquest of the Trans-Missouri West.
Pioneers of France in the
New World
Item code: FR-60688
ISBN: 0803287445
Authors: Francis Parkman. Colin G Calloway, intro.
Pages/Length: 473
Publisher: Bison
Publication Date: 1996
Format: Paperback
Primary Subject: History
Date Added: 1/13/2006
Price: $20.00
In the 16th century Spain claimed the New World for itself, and a rash of
Spanish explorers sailed toward Florida seeking cities of gold and the "fountain
of youth." Allured by their stories, French Huguenots also made inroads into
Florida, although they, like their Spanish counterparts, failed to establish
dominion over North America. Francis Parkman's 1865 narrative tells why. He
describes the efforts of the French to tame the wilderness, trade with the
native population, and compete with English colonial endeavors; the northern
expeditions of Jacques Cartier and Samuel de Champlain; and the more successful
French colonial endeavors in Canada and Acadia. Though Parkman's history is a
product of his time—colored by attitudes that today are considered broadly
chauvinistic and racist, and also rather unencumbered by modern standards of
fact checking—he is still read and admired for the sweeping romance of his
account.
Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause:
Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase
Item code: FR-52444
ISBN: 0195153472
Authors: Roger G. Kennedy.
Pages/Length: 350
Publisher: Oxford/BOMC
Publication Date: 2003
Format: Cloth
Primary Subject: History
Date Added: 11/21/2006
Price: $30.00
Thomas Jefferson advocated a republic of small farmers—free and independent
yeomen. And yet as president he presided over a massive expansion of the
slaveholding plantation system, particularly with the Louisiana Purchase, which
simultaneously squeezed the yeomanry to the fringes of less desirable farmland
and encouraged the cultivation of tobacco and cotton, both of which ruined the
soil. Roger Kennedy conducts an eye-opening examination of the gap between
Jefferson's stated aspirations and what actually happened. He examines the great
financial interests (such as the powerful land companies that speculated in new
territories and the British textile interests) that beat down slavery's many
opponents in the South itself, including Native Americans, African Americans,
Appalachian farmers, and conscientious opponents of slavery.
"Roger Kennedy throws down the gauntlet in his engaging new book. Was the
freedom-loving, slave-holding Thomas Jefferson responsible for the coming of the
Civil War? Kennedy's bold argument will certainly stir up controversy among the
specialists, but it will also force them to rethink some of the most important
questions in the history of the early American republic. Mr. Jefferson's Lost
Cause is vintage Kennedy, serving up a characteristically rich offering of
fascinating stories, deft character sketches, and provocative
conclusions."—Peter Onuf
A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic
Item code: FR-70359
ISBN: 0195159241
Authors: John Ferling.
Pages/Length: 558
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Date: 2003
Format: Cloth
Primary Subject: History
Date Added: 1/26/2007
Price: $30.00
This vivid portrait of the early American republic surges from
the first rumblings of colonial protest to the volcanic outburst of 1776, and
through the seismic struggles of the new country to determine its direction,
culminating in the bitterly contested election of 1800. Here Benjamin Franklin
seriously weighs whether his loyalty was to Great Britain or to America; George
Washington is a shrewd planter-businessman who realizes there are personal
economic advantages to American independence; and after the war, New England
struggles with whether it should secede from the rest of the newly united
states.
"This deft account of the American struggle for independence dispels the aura of
inevitability that usually surrounds such histories by beginning its narrative
not on the verge of the Revolution but twenty years earlier.... Ferling vividly
evokes the political turmoil of the post-Revolutionary years. Even as he takes
the Founders off their pedestals, their accomplishments only gain in
stature."—The New Yorker
Warships of the Great Lakes, 1754-1834
ISBN: 1840675357
Authors: Robert Malcomson.
Pages/Length: 160
Publisher: Caxton
Publication Date: 2001
Format: Cloth
Primary Subject: History
Import: Yes
Date Added: 6/30/2007
Price: $12.98
While the great fleets battled for international dominion on the oceans, the age
of fighting sail also evolved in the interior of North America that was, for 80
years, home to warships that ranged in size from simple gunboat to a First Rate
that could have held its own in Nelson's line of battle. Although sailing ships
first appeared on the Great Lakes in the 1670s as the French consolidated their
colony along the St. Lawrence River and holdings to the west, this illustrated
history begins at about the time that the British Admiralty issued instructions
to begin building a naval presence on the lakes; it ends in 1834, when the
British closed the last of the establishments where warships under sail were
operated. It provides a description of the warships, their design and
construction, and their use during war and peace; in addition to woodcuts and
diagrams, some 46 tables include such information as hull dimensions, total
guns, and dates of launch.
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