From a New York Times-bestselling author, a sweeping history of the American West
In Dreams of El Dorado, H. W. Brands tells the thrilling, panoramic story of the settling of the American West. He takes us from John Jacob Astor's fur trading outpost in Oregon to the Texas Revolution, from the California gold rush to the Oklahoma land rush. He shows how the migrants' dreams drove them to feats of courage and perseverance that put their stay-at-home cousins to shame-and how those same dreams also drove them to outrageous acts of violence against indigenous peoples and one another. The West was where riches would reward the miner's persistence, the cattleman's courage, the railroad man's enterprise; but El Dorado was at least as elusive in the West as it ever was in the East.
Balanced, authoritative, and masterfully told, Dreams of El Dorado sets a new standard for histories of the American West.
Author(s): H. W. Brands
Edition: 1st.
Publisher: Basic Books, Hachette Book Group
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 544
City: New York, NY
Tags: West (U.S.)—Discovery and exploration; West (U.S.)—History; United States—Territorial expansion; Frontier and pioneer life—United States
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
PART I: NAPOLEON’S GIFT
1. The River at the Heart of America
2. The Corps of Discovery
3. West by Northwest
4. To the Pacific
PART II: A SKIN FOR A SKIN
5. Astoria
6. Comcomly’s Dismay
7. The White-Headed Eagle
8. Mountain Man
9. Colter’s Run
10. Ursus Horribilis
PART III: GONE TO TEXAS
11. Moses Austin’s Dying Wish
12. Texas Will Be Lost
13. Ruin and Redemption
14. Victory or Death
15. Bloody Palm Sunday
16. Laying There Yet
PART IV: THE GREAT MIGRATION
17. The Four Wise Men
18. Females Wanted
19. Trapped Out
20. Waiilatpu
21. For God and Country
22. The Way West
23. The Business of the Trail
24. Desperate Fury
25. Ambassador from Oregon
PART V: THE WORLD IN A NUGGET OF GOLD
26. The Secret of the Sierra Nevada
27. Gold Mountain
28. Crime and Punishment
29. The Spirit of ’87
30. To Be Decently Poor
31. Where Can We Go?
PART VI: STEEL RAILS AND SHARPS RIFLES
32. Stephen Douglas’s Brainstorm
33. North, South, West
34. Free Soil
35. Hell on Wheels
36. Saints and Sinners
37. Once We Were Happy
38. There Would Be No Soldiers Left
39. Adobe Walls
40. Lost River
41. The Pride of Young Joseph
PART VII: THE MIDDLE BORDER
42. Abilene
43. Hard Lesson
44. Into the Great Unknown
45. The Arid Region
46. More Like Us
47. It Grew Very Cold
48. Less Corn and More Hell
49. Bonanza
PART VIII: THE COWBOY IN THE WHITE HOUSE
50. Rough Riding
51. West Takes East
52. Cashing In
53. John Muir’s Last Stand
54. The Long, Long Trail
Acknowledgments
Discover More
About the Author
Also by H. W. Brands
Notes
