The Year Of Decision, 1846

Trilogy of the West #2

by Bernard DeVoto

1846 was the year in which the United States of America began to spread westward in earnest.

Over forty years after the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark’s expedition, this year marks the point at which men and women from the east began to travel westward and populate the land near the Pacific.

Bernardo DeVoto’s fascinating study of this movement fully captures this moment when Western frontier was first truly settled by adventurers and explorers.

This year marks the point at which troubles with Mexico come to a head and the Mexican-American War broke out.

It was also the year when the Mormons made their famous trek across from Illinois to Utah.

Immigrant trains spread across the breadth of the country and men and women aspired to make new lives for themselves in the west. Some of these made in through the treacherous passes, but others like the Donner Party ended in tragedy.

DeVoto uncovers the famous adventurers and explorers who were instrumental in forging new paths westwards like Jim Bridger, Frances Parkman and Jim Clyman.

This brilliant book uncovers how through the course of the year and through a variety of different reasons the United States greatly expanded as areas that would become known as Texas, new Mexico, California, Oregon and Utah came under its sway.

“A scholar's book, packed with minute detail, and colored by the hopes and fears and pleasures and ambitions of the motley throng that stirred, and uprooted themselves, and moved westward.” Kirkus Reviews

Bernard DeVoto was a Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian of the American West. He was a lifelong champion of American Public lands and the conservation of public resources as well as an outspoken defender of civil liberties. His book The Year of Decision, 1846 was first published in 1942 and he passed away in 1955.

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction, Westerns, American, 19th Century, War

661 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1943

About the author

Bernard Augustine DeVoto was an American historian and author who specialized in the history of the American West.

Reviews

[dianne b. · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fantastic history. The somewhat insane people who sustained a roughly 50% mortality - walking, pushing, dragging all they have across 3000+ mostly hostile miles to land in a totally unknown geography; and at that point not part of a country they knew.
California's written history is about 2 minutes long. My father knew his great grandmother well - distinct and complex memories; she arrived with Sam Brannan in San Francisco in 1846 on the ship Brooklyn whose contents doubled the Euro population of SF. It all happened so recently that the trouble i have even imagining making the choice to cross the plains is frustrating. i can't fathom - especially the many who were not destitute - like the Donners, who were wealthy.
The writing is dense but very readable. If you are interested in this pre-gold rush period and the role that decisions made then, and the expansion West in general, played in the upcoming civil war - it is a very satisfying read. He believes that this expansion and enlargement of the free states (as the West had to be) was the final nail in the coffin of the atavistic South.
i went with 4 stars (instead of five) because i hate reading the detailed accounts of battles - so it may be an unfair star denial. It is a small proportion of the pages, so easily skimmed....
i learned a great deal about the origin of the street names in San Francisco. Kearny was a saint, an unselfish genius. Fremont was a egomaniacal jack-ass. Hastings was worse - in fact Hastings was the reason the Donners are a permanent part of the West's history. Juicy stuff.

[Katherine Addison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a tremendously ambitious and entertaining book. De Voto's project is to examine, explore, and explain what happened to America in A.D. 1846, and he does an excellent job of it, from the politicians in Washington, to the army in Mexico, the Mormons fleeing Missouri, and of course the Donner Party descending to cannibalism on the verge of California. He uses lots and lots of primary sources, has a magnificently entertaining and snarky prose style, and not only explained mid-nineteenth century American politics so that I could understand it, but convinced me to find it interesting as well. No small feat, I assure you.

The flaw in this book--and it's a big one--is its treatment of Indians. De Voto (not surprisingly for his era) persistently Others the Sioux and Cheyenne and other Plains Indians, simultaneously demonizing and infantilizing them. I object to this, of course, on the grounds that it's racist, but also because, in terms of De Voto's own project, it's a catastrophic failure. He's so carefully concerned to pay attention to what people's motives were, both the politicians and the pioneers, the Mormons and Zachary Taylor and everyone in between, but with the Indians, he doesn't even try. He essentially says, "No one knows why Indians do anything, not even the Indians themselves," and thus there's a great gaping hypocritical hole in the middle of his beautiful, elaborate, interdependent structure of motivations and causes and pure human cussedness, and it makes me very sad.

[Lloyd Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book and its predecessors 'The Course of Empire' and 'Across the Wide Missouri' are must reads for anybody interested in pre-Civil War American History. The author, Bernard DeVoto, presents profound and astute analysis grounded in in-depth research and encyclopedic knowledge of subject, free from political correctness, in a very readable, straight-forward, and no-nonsense manner. You might agree or disagree with his conclusions but you won't question his integrity.

[Wanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

James K. Polk may just be my favorite president. And we did NOT steal it. We won it in a fair fight. Get over it, losers!

[Glen Pekin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This guy could write history. You might think it is out dated but put him on you history shelf.

[Lauren Hiebner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun book to read, like sitting around the campfire listening to stories of the old West. DeVoto relies on first hand stories and tales to explain that decisions made in 1846 led to the Civil War. Much like Juan dos Passos, he tells of events occurring at the same time on the frontier.

[Jan C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in college. Borrowed my parents' copy from 1943 or some such year.

He was so thorough. Did anything happen in 1846 that he didn't cover? Probably not.

Possibly a little too thorough when it came to the details of the Donner Party. That part was just revolting. To find out real details of what starvation can drive people to. And how stupidity can really put you in danger.

But when, I think it was John Reade, was walking off, determined to get to civilization or freeze in the process, I just wanted to yell at the rest of the party - "go with him! go with him!" But they didn't. And some tried but didn't make it very far. It was just a sad chapter. But they just wouldn't listen to sage advice earlier in the trip when the final outcome could still have been averted.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sludgy. Great content, fusty prose that kept mucking it up. Great for its time, no doubt, but now a museum piece...

[Jeff Elliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really good writing in some places--despite subject material that was less than riveting. Nevertheless, I now know a lot more about the conquests of California, New Mexico, James K. Polk, Kearney, the Donner Party tragedy and the setting for the Civil War.

A particularly interesting paragraph regarding the hardiness of those mountain men (one wonders if they exaggerated their own stories?)
One morning Jim and the Bill Sublette whom he [Jim Clyman] was to meet again at Independence in '44 saddled their winter-worn horses and went out to hunt. Nothing showed in that Arctic air till at sundown they sighted some buffalo. Their horses were too broken-down to make a run and they had to crawl on their bellies for nearly a mile over frozen snow. The buffalo scented them and bolted but they wounded one. Sublette went back for the horses and Clyman followed the wounded buffalo, finally killing it in a small arroyo, whence he could not get it out alone. Sublette came up at nightfall, they got a small fire going, and were able to butcher some meat. But a blizzard came out of the north. There was no wood and but little sage; their fire was blown away. They pulled their robes over them and the gale battered them till morning. At daylight Clyman was able to pull some sage but they could not ignite it, either by flint and steel or by rifle fire. Jim got the horses. Sublette was to weak to mount. Jim found a single live coal left from their fire of the night before and got the sage lighted. They warmed themselves and Sublette was able to mount his horse--but soon turned numb and began to die. Jim dismounted and led his friend's horse through snow a foot deep into the teeth of the gale. Four miles away he found a patch of timber where one wall of an Indian bark lodge was standing. Behind this shelter he got a fire going at last, then "ran back and whope up my friends horse assisted him to dismount and get to the fire he seemed to [have] no life to move as usual he laid down nearly asleep while I went Broiling meat on a stick after awile I roused him up and gave him his Breakfast when he came to and was as active as usual." p. 61

[Jim Gallen · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Year of Decision: 1846” is a study of the decisive events that occurred in the American West during the year 1846. It focuses on three main themes, the Mexican War, the Mormon trek to Utah and the tragic Donner party’s doomed transit to California. I choose to read it because others that I have read about the Mexican War repeatedly quote it and author Bernard DeVoto.

The themes vary from chapter to chapter. DeVoto skillfully weaves what I call “little history”, the daily events of individuals, into the bigger picture. Although not segregating each theme into its own section of this work, I was reminded of Will Durant’s Story of Civilization series.

No era has a monopoly on wisdom. Originally published in 1942, DeVoto’s writing reflects his time and is not constrained by more modern conventions. He felt comfortable in writing that Commodore Robert Stockton “was a fool” and that John C. Fremont “was worse that a fool, he was an opportunist.” He described Brigham Young as “one of the nineteenth century’s greatest men” without having to note Mormonism’s treatment of women and blacks. He could lump “Indians” together in the index, followed by subheadings of individual tribes. He described the Shawnee and decayed Kansa (Kaw) as “potential thieves and persistent beggars” and the Pawnee as “expert thieves, cattle raiders, and banditti who tried to levy blackmail on all passers-by” without justification or apology.

Tomes such as this are history in themselves. They reflect the outlooks of their times, as the document the events of their past. There are other volumes more focused on individual themes. “The Year of Decision: 1846” is one to read deliberately in order to absorb what made 1846 a year of decision.

[Chris D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book published in 1942, which if you paid attention to the title is about a series of decisions in 1846 by various politicians, explorers, emigrants, soldiers, and a religious community looking for a new home. DeVoto's writing is dense, this book is not a fast read. This work of western American history has plenty of heroes and also plenty of villains.

DeVoto sees plenty of ulterior motives by the main characters in his tome including Democratic President James K. Polk who does not want a war won by a Whig General and John C. Fremont who DeVoto thinks was a fraud whose reputation was inflated by his father in law Senator Thomas Hart Benton.

In this long history the reader receives detailed description of the conquest of Santa Fe, the tragedy of the Donner Party, and the plight of the Mormons as they fled from their troubles in the Midwest to their new home near Salt Lake.

I was turned off by DeVoto's unending assault on Fremont's actions and character and some of the smarmy asides on the other individuals in his history. Despite of some of those misgivings over all I can recommend this always thought provoking look at the year 1846.

[Joe Angiulo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Authoritative, even magisterial, DeVoto's book is also perhaps the most challenging thing I've read in years. It's dense, convoluted and requires a fairly deep understanding of Western history and literature to make any sense at all. But it's an absorbing, rich snapshot of the most important single year of our history (here in California), an insanely ambitious project that I can compare only to "The Education of Henry Adams" and Morris's "Pax Britannica" trilogy.

[Craig Knott · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's an amazingly detailed account of one of the most pivotal year in the American History. The book is thick 500 pg read set up in chapters that cover every major player from J.k. Polk to John C. Freemont, to the Donner Party, to the invasion of Mexico by Zach Taylor and W. Scott to Brigham Young and the Saints exodus. The Pulitzer Prize winning author, Bernard Devoto, was actually raised in Ogden in the early 20th century and moved on to be a profeesor at Harvard and one of the Ages most respected Historians. The book was written during WWII and apparently was inspiring to the nation.

The most difficult part of the book was getting a grasp on the countless characters that are lesser know in history. The book does a great job in explaining why, for example, General Kearney, who conquered New Mexico, Chihuhua, Arizona and eventually claimed California for the US with a few hundred troops, has been virtually forgotten while a scoundrel like John C Freemont has hero status 150 years later. The most interesting for me were the chapters covering the Donner-Fraser-Reed party and there disaster. The Donner party chapters wereinteresting becuase in my case I have always heard the generic stories but never the details of the story and what led up to it was spellbinding. I may never get the image out of my mind of George Donner's two young children devouring their fathers liver and brain as the rescue party arrives to save them, or the description of the "Forlorn Hope" survivors arriving at a indian camp looking like the walking dead.

If you are a non-fiction reader and appreciate history detailed books I recommend it. It gave me a expanded view of what forces happened 1846 to caused the Civil War, and how the West was opened. I suggest using wikipedia to get more details on the characters before you get too far in the book. It makes the read easier to follow.

[Clytee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book in a used book store and it jumped off the shelf at me. Mine is the original published in 1942, a hardback with the dustcover and I just loved it! It is a long read at 500+ pages, but it was so much of so many different histories that I have learned put together. It is about "some people who went west in 1846". It was the year the War with Mexico was started (during which my great-great grandfather spent a year in the Army), tells of the Donner party (I have read a lot about that and been to the memorial on Donner pass), tells of Fort Sutter (in Sacramento, where I visited when my daughter lived there), and of the first party of Mormon pioneers to get to the Salt Lake Valley (a story I have heard much about, being Mormon and living in Salt Lake). The author has an interesting reading style, but I was proud of myself that I could follow it!

[Nooilforpacifists · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful, but tedious. Read a Polk bio or "Let the Sea Make A Noise", by Walter McDougall.

[Robert Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a reason US historians don't talk much about the 1840s anymore. It's an embarrassing time. James K. Polk is among our most successful and significant presidents. He set out to annex Texas, steal half of Mexico, and browbeat Britain into giving up Oregon and Washington, and that's exactly what he did. Polk built the Western United States in a few short years. The problem is that it's not a particularly noble story, and it just gets more and more sordid looking as our sensibilities advance. So to read about it in depth I picked up a book published in 1943.

I would highly recommend Bernard DeVoto's book to anybody who is interested in 1846, the year the United States decided to be a continent. It's a fascinating exploration of a number of different strands of life, belief and migration that were going on in that seminal year. It's also a window into how Americans saw the world most of a century ago. Even in 1943, it was pretty clear to DeVoto that there was a lot of corruption and outright theft in the actions of Polk and other US proto-imperialists. But DeVoto still has a ton of faith in US manifest destiny, the glory of US ambitions, and an old-fashioned love of the "pioneering spirit". This mix is of course exacerbated by the fact that DeVoto was writing as we were fighting World War II.

To be clear, it's the 1940s, and there are a few appallingly racist paragraphs in the book. In one of the most tone deaf passages I have ever read in historical literature, he dares to compare Native Americans defending their land from Europeans to Nazis fighting for Eastern European Lebensraum. Any sane reader can see that that comparison only makes sense if it is reversed. Most of the passages dealing with the indigenous are better than that, but he very clearly believes that the United States had higher and better uses for that land, and he isn't afraid to say it.

The indigenous aren't much of a factor in this narrative, but DeVoto is admirably clear eyed on how straightforwardly we robbed the Mexicans. He has surprisingly positive things to say about Mexican general Santa Anna, a villain in traditional US historiography. I also admired how full a picture he paints of most of the historical characters. He seems to have sympathy for sufferings of migrants and soldiers, but with the exception of one military man, and a few outdoorsmen, pretty much everybody in the book seems to be a grasping incompetent, up to and including President Polk. DeVoto seems much more uncritically on board with the goals of continental conquest than most are today, but he is very aware that the human materials that make up history are almost always deeply faulty. I appreciate that historical vision and cynicism, even as I deplore the old-timey bigotry.

It's a shame that these stories aren't told more often. The stories of the Mormon migration out of the Midwest, the cannibalistic Donner party that failed to make it over the mountains in time, Polk's political machinations and the Whigs who opposed him, and the multiple clownish campaigns of the early US-Mexican war are all well worth telling. In my grandparents generation I assume they were all stories that were better known. This remains a book that's well worth reading, but it's also one whose subject matter I'd love to see revisited in this modern age.

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why 1846, a year that hardly stands out in anyone’s consciousness as a important year in this nation’s history? DeVoto’s answer is that it’s a brief time that determines a long future, a “period when the manifold possibilities of chance were shaped to converge into the inevitable, when the future of the American nation was precipitated out of the possible by the actions of people we deal with.” That’s the essential theme of the book, a concentration on many individuals, depicted in their surroundings, and how their actions would together bring on a civil war.

DeVoto’s book is crowded with memorable people and he constantly tries to show links between them. For example, the quixotic and doomed Brook Farm Utopian experiment of the New England transcendentalists would in a sense find its fulfillment in the remarkable Brigham Young-led Mormon migration which led to the settlement of the Salt Lake basin.

The western expansion led inevitably to conflicts with England and Mexico over ownership of territories. The conflict with England was settled peacefully with the establishment of the 49th parallel as a border, but the conflict with Mexico ended in war, a war which saw most Civil War generals, Grant and Lee being the most notable, getting their first combat experience. And l846 saw the continuing bitter dispute over the issue of slavery in this new “empire”, one that would erupt 14 years later in the Civil War. James Polk, the last of the Whig presidents was in the middle of his term, blundered into the Mexican war, and out of it would come one of the most unfit men ever to be elected president, Zachary Taylor, a war hero, his only qualification. The period also marked the last doomed efforts of Senator John C. Calhoun to hang onto the power of the old South.

DeVoto devotes a lot of space to the hardships of going west. Not all attempts were success, the Donner party epitomizing one of its failures. Francis Parkman’s description of the Oregon Trail struggles is discussed, as is John Fremont’s self-serving adventures in California that led to statehood and his presidential nomination. Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, and now long-forgotten mountain men are given their share of attention.
Abraham Lincoln, early in his career, recognized that the West was creating a domestic empire for the United State, itss “manifest destiny” one that he thought couldn’t be allowed to be balkanized into separate parts.

That leads to DeVoto’s conclusion that all of these individuals were instrumental in building that western empire, but once built externally, it had to solve a central political paradox, the evasion of the Constitution on slavery. The actions of all these men, in different ways, made the West a part of the country, and the disagreements over how it was to be included were part of the growing storm that would drench the country in a little over a decade with the bloodbath of the Civil War

[Neil Funsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

IThis is a very rich slice of American History. Concentrated, and as such a bit of a mouthful in places requiring some determined chewing…but what a story…make that stories. All the half dozen stories are accounts of historical events which proved critical in establishing the United States as a coast-to-coast continental power. The acquisition of California, of Oregon (and the subsequent squeezing out of England, France and Spain), The Mormon exodus to the Great Salt Lake, the War with Mexico, The Donner Party and the Oregon Trail Emigration of 1846 are the events that were crucial in making the United States’ Manifest Destiny a reality. The Country would now stretch across the continent from sea to sea. Remarkably all these events were happening simultaneously and just as noteworthy for the reader, the author skillfully weaves them together leaving only a reasonable amount of confusion among the flotsam of facts.
What elevates this book above the level of merely interesting history is the Author’s entertaining writing style (informal and opinionated) and his ability to flesh out the actors in the drama. He doesn’t shy away from judging the participants, and comments on their flaws and strengths throughout. Some he gives nicknames to others labels such as “The Prophet”. The odd thing is that this unapologetic bias makes the characters much more personal and memorable. (The author is no hack and another of his Histories won the Pulitzer Prize.) The individuals who emerge as a result are so very human, but of a type that this reader understands as an informed but subjective creation of the author.
My final impression is that this was still a time when an individual could decisively affect the course of history and these men/women did. Men like Brigham Young, Stephen Kearney and James Clyman among a host of other visionaries, dreamers and scoundrels, acting in turn foolishly, bravely and humanly, influenced the success or failure of their missions both personal and political.
An entertaining and informative book worth the effort.

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book 32 of 2023: The Year of Decision: 1846 by Bernard DeVoto (1942/2000, Truman Talley Books, 538 p.)

An engaging history of a crucial point in the narrative of the Western United States (and the rest of our continental nation). This book is the first of DeVoto's trilogy of Western history. This book was the first publshed, but last chronologicslly of the three.

The book chronicles several events in 1846 leading to the expansion of the United Stes across the West to become a continental nation. Among these are:

- The start of mass emigration along the Oregon Trail
- the Donner Party tragedy
- the flight of the Mormons from persecution in the United Stayes to Deseret (modern Utah)
- the Mexican-American War
- the acquisition of Oregon from the British

Originally published in 1942, the book won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award.

I often point to the Treay of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican-American War to explain the existence of large amounts of federal land in the West. But I have never read an account of the actual war.

The events of 1846 led to the formation of the Union as a continental nation. DeVoto also connects the dots from this land acquisition and its settlement to bringing the national shame of chattel slavery from a simmer to a boil that lead to the Civil War.

Highly recommended.

[Andrew Scholes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a lot about the Mormon drive to go west. It seems that there was violence associated with their drive. I also learned about France Parkman. It was also quite disturbing to read of the details of cannibalism. It is quite disturbing to think about this situation. I wonder what I would have done if there was no other food. "The next day, December 27, they butchered the bodies of Graves, Dolan, Antoine and Lemuel Murphy and dried at the fire such portions as they did not need now, packing them for the journey to come."and "to meet some of the others who were coming back to find the Fosdick corpses - to get meat. The situation they were in was desperate. "They had been drenched and chilled, they had repeatedly to stop and dry out the food they were carrying, sometimes they had slept in snow water, sometimes they had not slept at all." I found some of this hard to read because of the description of the cannibalism. I was also disturbed by the lack of documentation, footnotes and cites, etc.

[Floyd Garrett · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a book I had sitting on my shelves for years. It wasn't until I finished Hampton Sides book, Blood and Thunder, that I decided to make the commitment to the 515 pages. And I really, really wanted to like this book. The subject matter was fascinating and he proves his thesis about the year 1846 being a year of migration west that changed our country.

As others have stated, his disdain for John C. Fremont gets a tad annoying. But, one learns so much about a wide range of subjects, people, and the history of the land and the people who were here long before the migration.

There are writers writing today, with newer voices and material that bring this period to life much better than DeVoto (Sides, Brand, Gwynn). However, he is a classic historian and I'm sure I'll read the other volumes of the trilogy.

Maybe after I finish the Caro books on LBJ.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very thorough history of an important and especially busy expansionist period in the U.S. The author, a well regarded historian treats this history almost as if he was telling the story around a campfire located in the foothills west of Great Salt Lake. He seems to know all the main and minor characters; Fremont, Benton, Kit Carson, Webster, John Calhoun, Donner, Emerson, Taylor and J.K. Polk, for example. He also includes about 20 pages of very helpful notes, Don't overlook those. Take some time with the book. Enjoy the author's style, he rambles but he knows the period cold and weaves in lots of good side stories. It is a great read.

[Alonzo Church · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid (and bulky) history of the events affecting the West in the decisive year of 1846. The book reads as if we acquired California and Oregon mostly by luck. The "leaders" come off very badly. Such a partisan approach makes for lively reading, but also makes one question the truth of what is being sold.

There is fascinating detail on the Mormon emigration, and the hardships of the emigrants to Oregon and California. The book is at its strongest in capturing the tribulations of those either marching to fight the Mexicans, or traveling the Oregon trail.

[Ken Baxter · Rating 5 out of 5]

First rate history

DeVoto has written an unsurpassed history of 1846 and that year's momentous effects on the making of the USA. He gives the best description of wagon trains I've encountered. The politics and forces of the times are richly described and explained. The Mexican War about which few Americans know much is given its just due. Polk, Taylor, Winfield Scott, and the Donners flesh out this cast of characters it would be hard to make up. Pardon the 'flesh' pun near the Donners.

[Nathan Sneddon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rated higher than I should have. But I’m a addicted to the antebellum American West. One reviewer called it “sludgy”. I think this is a very apt adjective for his writing style. I would say his style is verbose and wanders thoroughly. There’s a reason it took me at least 2 years to finish it! I can say without equivocation that he gets a number of the facts surrounding the Mormon Battalion and Pioneers just plain wrong. As such, it makes me wonder what other “facts” he has wrong. Mixed on if I would recommend someone read it.

[Joan M Cosley · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many things happened that year starting with the decisions of President Polk to annex Texas, settle the Northwestern border between the US and Great Britain, and become a two ocean country. Following that was the great westward movement including the Mormon migration to Utah, the opening of the Oregon trail, the sad fate of the Donner party, and the southern army moving through New Mexico and Arizona to take California.

[David Bradshaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

War with Mexico
General Winfield Scott, President Polk, General Zachary Taylor, Fremont, Stockton, Kearney,
Navoo - Mormon trek to Zion Great Salt Lake
The Doner party - we will follow a book by a real estate developer with a shortcut to California - what could go wrong
Mountain men-
The Wilmot proviso- new territories - conquest - slavery finally mentioned - Southern power at risk -
Cotton threads binding the nation - or do they?

[Zack Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impeccable. I don't know what the other reviewers are on about, the writing is beautiful throughout. It's a long read and not super easy, but very rewarding. It sucked me in to the point where I didn't want to put it down.

I can't recommend this highly enough. It might be my favorite history book of all time.

[Fred Eisenhut · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant study of the growth of the western United States. The Mexican War, the Mormons leaving Illinois under Joseph Smith. President James Polk. American becoming a country moving toward the Civil War. It is all here. Wonderful read.

[Daniel Patitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yesterday or today

What is similarity the politics of 1846 for the politics now . It's really something to see how the expansion was secret and many of the items in the book were never displayed or talked about in my history classes.