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Dreams of El Dorado: A History of the American West
"Epic in its scale, fearless in its scope" (Hampton Sides), this masterfully told account of the American West from a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist sets a new standard as it sweeps from the California Gold Rush and beyond.
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.
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.
544 pages, Paperback
First published October 22, 2019
550 people are currently reading
6847 people want to read
About the author
H.W. Brands
103 books1,174 followersH.W. Brands is an acclaimed American historian and author of over thirty books on U.S. history, including Pulitzer Prize finalists The First American and Traitor to His Class. He holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned his PhD. Originally trained in mathematics, Brands turned to history as a way to pursue his passion for writing. His biographical works on figures like Franklin, Jackson, Grant, and both Roosevelts have earned critical and popular praise for their readability and depth. Raised in Oregon and educated at Stanford, Reed College, and Portland State, he began his teaching career in high schools before entering academia. He later taught at Texas A&M and Vanderbilt before returning to UT Austin. Brands challenges conventional reverence for the Founding Fathers, advocating for a more progressive and evolving view of American democracy. In addition to academic works, his commentary has featured in major documentaries. His books, published internationally and translated into multiple languages, examine U.S. political, economic, and cultural development with compelling narrative force. Beyond academia, he is a public intellectual contributing to national conversations on history and governance.
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April 24, 2020
“The West was often viewed as the last bastion of American individualism, but woven through its entire history was a strong thread – at times a cable – of collectivism. Western individualism sneered, even snarled, at federal power, but federal power was essential to the development of the West. The West was America’s unspoiled Eden, but the spoilage of the West proceeded more rapidly than that of any other region. The West was the land of wide open spaces, but its residents were more concentrated in cities and towns than in most of the East. The West was where whites fought Indians, but they rarely went into battle without Indian allies, and their ranks included black soldiers. The West was where fortune beckoned, where riches would reward the miner’s persistence, the cattleman’s courage, the railroad man’s enterprise, the bonanza farmer’s audacity; but El Dorado was at least as elusive in the West as it ever was in the East. Its elusiveness simply added to its allure…”
- H.W. Brands, Dreams of El Dorado: A History of the American West
The United States of America is a vast space containing many unique regions of vastly differing geography, culture, and history. But when people think of America, the image that often comes to mind is of the West. The spirit of rugged go-it-aloneness, allegedly flowing through the American bloodstream, is embodied in our mind’s images of taciturn cowboys or solitary homesteaders. The optimism that – at one point, though no longer – used to imbue the American idea, is best captured in the nation’s westward gaze, where a potential jackpot of precious metals, rich furs, and tillable soil awaited those with the guts to take it. Finally, the stark violence that accompanies any growing nation is on full display during the course of America’s expansion towards the Pacific Ocean. This violence, however, was not solely the result of America’s continental imperialism. At least six different countries vied for the West, along with dozens of Indian tribes, and each actor in this bloody drama operated within a complex web of alliances, enemies, and aspirations.
The story of the American West is huge, and far too large to be captured in a single volume. In Dreams of El Dorado, noted historian H.W. Brands does not even try to corral this sprawling material. Instead, starting with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, and ending with Teddy Roosevelt’s ascendancy to the presidency in 1901, Brands tells a surprisingly taut tale that focuses on a few carefully selected characters and incidents.
The men and women we follow run the gamut of experiences. None of them can be classified as unknowns, but they are not historical celebrities, either. For instance, in telling the story of the fur trade, Brands mostly ignores Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, and Jedediah Smith, in favor of John McLoughlin of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and trapper Joe Meek, who lived a long, interesting, and literate life (having left a written record is one of the necessary conditions for inclusion in this book, which does a lot of quoting from primary sources). Later, in telling how present-day Washington was settled, Brands follows the odyssey of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, married missionaries who traveled the Oregon Trail to found their mission, only to be murdered by Cayuse Indians in 1847.
Brands uses these individual experiences to illustrate broader trends. He is also – on occasion – able to stitch together a rather seamless narrative by tracing the intersecting lives of the people he has chosen to follow. (Trapper Joe Meek, for example, met – and was enamored by – Narcissa Whitman, during her doomed trek west).
One of the surprising things about Dreams of El Dorado is what it underplays, or leaves out completely. There is very little Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse here, which is odd, given their impactful roles in defying American expansion. Rather, Brands conveys much of the Indian experience through the medicine man Black Elk, who collaborated with American writer John Niehardt to convey his visions in a book eventually titled Black Elk Speaks. Indeed, Dreams of El Dorado is decidedly not a military history, so famed “Indian fighters” such as Phil Sheridan, William Harney, and George Custer barely get a sentence or two, if they are mentioned at all.
Brands has long been near the top of my list of favorite author-historians. Nevertheless, he can be frustratingly inconsistent. Ultimately, I have found his biographies (especially of FDR and Ulysses Grant) to be fantastic, while his general histories rate just above average. Even on his best days, he is not going to dazzle you with his prose or set pieces. His strengths are clarity, thoughtfulness, and the integration of interesting first-person accounts.
Having read many of Brands’s books, I found parts of Dreams of El Dorado to read like a synthesis of his earlier works. His easy knowledge of the California Gold Rush, the Texas Revolution, and the rise of Teddy Roosevelt, are the consequence of him having written extensively on these subjects before (in The Age of Gold, Lone Star Nation, and TR, respectively).
I hesitate to offer any sharp criticisms, as Brands is a renowned historian and a delightful talking-head in many documentaries. Yet, I would be remiss if I did not mention how Brands seems to lose a bit of his footing when straying away from topics that he has previously researched and written about. In the acknowledgments, Brands notes that this project was “suggested” to him, rather than it being an idea he came up with himself.
Frankly, there are times I could tell.
For instance, Brands’s brief rendition of the Plains Indians Wars is filled with inaccuracies. He repeats unsourced myths about William Fetterman’s fatal 1866 fight along the Bozeman Trail, and later makes a hash of the 1876 Centennial Campaign, referring to Brigadier General George Crook (head of the Department of the Platte) as a “lieutenant” of Lieutenant Colonel George Custer (who was acting commander of the Seventh Cavalry, and most decidedly a subordinate of Crook, and not the other way around). Later, his rendition of the Battle of the Little Big Horn intimates that Crazy Horse somehow planned an ambush to annihilate Custer’s troops, even though it was an encounter battle, with the eventual hostilities initiated by Custer, and grossly mismanaged by him and his subordinates.
These factual errors are mild, and to damn a whole book because of a couple of mistakes is pure grandstanding. Still, this is the natural result of a shallow reading of limited secondary sources, rather than a deep-dive into the materials. (A trip to the endnotes demonstrated, unfortunately, that Brands relied heavily on Dee Brown. Based on my own experiences with his books, Dee Brown had a tendency to repeat hearsay and legend as though they were fact).
At its best, though, Dreams of El Dorado is able to deliver big ideas in pithy bites. During the Gold Rush, for example, Brands proposes that the West was actually an “industrial frontier,” with evolving technologies, mining camps morphing into towns, and “with corporate boards and banks calling the tune.” Rather than an lagging behind during America’s Industrial Revolution, Brands puts the West in the vanguard.
Another reality Brands shows is that the settling of the West was not a progressive push from the left bank of the Mississippi. To the contrary, the West Coast of present-day California, Oregon, and Washington was settled first, with the Great Plains only backfilled later. This had obvious implications for Indian tribes who were – at first – willing to let people traverse their territory, as long as they kept going.
Dreams of El Dorado is entertaining, fast-paced, and reader-friendly. It introduces you to some remarkable people, gives you a dozen fraught adventures, and leaves you with a healthy reminder that history and myth often share an uncomfortably close coexistence, and that the inability to differentiate between the two still affects us to this day.
- H.W. Brands, Dreams of El Dorado: A History of the American West
The United States of America is a vast space containing many unique regions of vastly differing geography, culture, and history. But when people think of America, the image that often comes to mind is of the West. The spirit of rugged go-it-aloneness, allegedly flowing through the American bloodstream, is embodied in our mind’s images of taciturn cowboys or solitary homesteaders. The optimism that – at one point, though no longer – used to imbue the American idea, is best captured in the nation’s westward gaze, where a potential jackpot of precious metals, rich furs, and tillable soil awaited those with the guts to take it. Finally, the stark violence that accompanies any growing nation is on full display during the course of America’s expansion towards the Pacific Ocean. This violence, however, was not solely the result of America’s continental imperialism. At least six different countries vied for the West, along with dozens of Indian tribes, and each actor in this bloody drama operated within a complex web of alliances, enemies, and aspirations.
The story of the American West is huge, and far too large to be captured in a single volume. In Dreams of El Dorado, noted historian H.W. Brands does not even try to corral this sprawling material. Instead, starting with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, and ending with Teddy Roosevelt’s ascendancy to the presidency in 1901, Brands tells a surprisingly taut tale that focuses on a few carefully selected characters and incidents.
The men and women we follow run the gamut of experiences. None of them can be classified as unknowns, but they are not historical celebrities, either. For instance, in telling the story of the fur trade, Brands mostly ignores Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, and Jedediah Smith, in favor of John McLoughlin of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and trapper Joe Meek, who lived a long, interesting, and literate life (having left a written record is one of the necessary conditions for inclusion in this book, which does a lot of quoting from primary sources). Later, in telling how present-day Washington was settled, Brands follows the odyssey of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, married missionaries who traveled the Oregon Trail to found their mission, only to be murdered by Cayuse Indians in 1847.
Brands uses these individual experiences to illustrate broader trends. He is also – on occasion – able to stitch together a rather seamless narrative by tracing the intersecting lives of the people he has chosen to follow. (Trapper Joe Meek, for example, met – and was enamored by – Narcissa Whitman, during her doomed trek west).
One of the surprising things about Dreams of El Dorado is what it underplays, or leaves out completely. There is very little Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse here, which is odd, given their impactful roles in defying American expansion. Rather, Brands conveys much of the Indian experience through the medicine man Black Elk, who collaborated with American writer John Niehardt to convey his visions in a book eventually titled Black Elk Speaks. Indeed, Dreams of El Dorado is decidedly not a military history, so famed “Indian fighters” such as Phil Sheridan, William Harney, and George Custer barely get a sentence or two, if they are mentioned at all.
Brands has long been near the top of my list of favorite author-historians. Nevertheless, he can be frustratingly inconsistent. Ultimately, I have found his biographies (especially of FDR and Ulysses Grant) to be fantastic, while his general histories rate just above average. Even on his best days, he is not going to dazzle you with his prose or set pieces. His strengths are clarity, thoughtfulness, and the integration of interesting first-person accounts.
Having read many of Brands’s books, I found parts of Dreams of El Dorado to read like a synthesis of his earlier works. His easy knowledge of the California Gold Rush, the Texas Revolution, and the rise of Teddy Roosevelt, are the consequence of him having written extensively on these subjects before (in The Age of Gold, Lone Star Nation, and TR, respectively).
I hesitate to offer any sharp criticisms, as Brands is a renowned historian and a delightful talking-head in many documentaries. Yet, I would be remiss if I did not mention how Brands seems to lose a bit of his footing when straying away from topics that he has previously researched and written about. In the acknowledgments, Brands notes that this project was “suggested” to him, rather than it being an idea he came up with himself.
Frankly, there are times I could tell.
For instance, Brands’s brief rendition of the Plains Indians Wars is filled with inaccuracies. He repeats unsourced myths about William Fetterman’s fatal 1866 fight along the Bozeman Trail, and later makes a hash of the 1876 Centennial Campaign, referring to Brigadier General George Crook (head of the Department of the Platte) as a “lieutenant” of Lieutenant Colonel George Custer (who was acting commander of the Seventh Cavalry, and most decidedly a subordinate of Crook, and not the other way around). Later, his rendition of the Battle of the Little Big Horn intimates that Crazy Horse somehow planned an ambush to annihilate Custer’s troops, even though it was an encounter battle, with the eventual hostilities initiated by Custer, and grossly mismanaged by him and his subordinates.
These factual errors are mild, and to damn a whole book because of a couple of mistakes is pure grandstanding. Still, this is the natural result of a shallow reading of limited secondary sources, rather than a deep-dive into the materials. (A trip to the endnotes demonstrated, unfortunately, that Brands relied heavily on Dee Brown. Based on my own experiences with his books, Dee Brown had a tendency to repeat hearsay and legend as though they were fact).
At its best, though, Dreams of El Dorado is able to deliver big ideas in pithy bites. During the Gold Rush, for example, Brands proposes that the West was actually an “industrial frontier,” with evolving technologies, mining camps morphing into towns, and “with corporate boards and banks calling the tune.” Rather than an lagging behind during America’s Industrial Revolution, Brands puts the West in the vanguard.
Another reality Brands shows is that the settling of the West was not a progressive push from the left bank of the Mississippi. To the contrary, the West Coast of present-day California, Oregon, and Washington was settled first, with the Great Plains only backfilled later. This had obvious implications for Indian tribes who were – at first – willing to let people traverse their territory, as long as they kept going.
Dreams of El Dorado is entertaining, fast-paced, and reader-friendly. It introduces you to some remarkable people, gives you a dozen fraught adventures, and leaves you with a healthy reminder that history and myth often share an uncomfortably close coexistence, and that the inability to differentiate between the two still affects us to this day.
June 18, 2020
Brands is one of my favorite historian/authors. He has a way of telling a story that does not come off as overly professorial or long-windedly boring. This is another great example of his works. This book focuses on the development of the West, from the time of Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase to Teddy Roosevelts preservation of the American West. It is a glorious overview of American history, filled with names both familiar and scarcely known. Obviously, volumes can and have been written on the subject matter of each of these 54 chapters, and for someone who wishes to learn more than we are all welcome to do so, but here Brands gives us so many wonderful and tragic stories, characters and incidents that made the West. He breaks it down into 8 different sections beginning with the Louisiana Purchase, then we have Fur Traders, Texas and on and on it goes until we have reached the end of our Continental borders and begin to fill in the Midwest - great info on the Oklahoma Land Rush. All in all just a superb book by one of our leading historians.
March 10, 2020
I’ve lived in the West almost all my life, and have read a number of Western histories over the years. This is a very good one, and I learned quite a bit of new-to-me stuff in reading it. Prof. Brands is a dab hand with a telling anecdote, and I’ll relate a couple of good ones from my notes. First, you should (as always) read the publishers introduction, and my excerpts from the fine WSJ review:
". . .Lewis and Clark’s 28-month, 8,000-mile journey from St. Louis to Oregon and back not only represented an amazing feat of courage and endurance but established the precedent for federal sponsorship of exploration and scientific discovery that we still adhere to today. And despite the excitement and national pride that the expedition elicited, he reminds us that it was also something of a letdown. In dispatching the Corps of Discovery, Jefferson was hoping to find a navigable route to the West Coast, to open trade with the Indians and to plant the American flag in Oregon, which was also claimed by Great Britain. But after learning of those cataracts on the Missouri and Columbia, the president reluctantly concluded the Far West might be too remote ever to join the United States, and he believed it was more likely to become an independent republic. And so, Mr. Brands writes, “the disappointments attached to the Lewis and Clark expedition set the pattern for many disappointments to follow. Time and again Americans would project their dreams onto the West and be disappointed. . . .”
". . . Mr. Brands takes pleasure in explaining how things work and has studded the book with illuminating asides. He describes the lifeways of the beaver and the annual cycle of a fur trapper. He catalogs the daily routine of a wagon train. He shows how the quintessentially western industries of gold mining, cattle-raising and farming outgrew their small-scale origins and soon became as industrialized as the manufacturing done at factories back east. He explains how the introduction of the horse fundamentally changed Native American culture and how the tribes’ decentralized governance sometimes increased the likelihood of violence in the face of white encroachment.
This isn’t a book of white hats and black hats. Neither does Mr. Brands shy away from the less heroic episodes of western history. From the beginning, he reminds us, the region was a chaotic, dangerous place. In fact, he considers violence, “humans killing one another in the struggle for control of Western resources,” as “the defining characteristic of the West.”
WSJ review: https://www.wsj.com/articles/dreams-o... (Paywalled. As always, I'm happy to email a copy to non-subscribers)
You might also read the Kirkus review for a quick, short look: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
I did skim some of the history I already knew well, but Brand is such a good writer that I read almost all of his account of the Lewis & Clark expedition, even though I had previously read the expedition journal. Anecdote: in their dismal winter camp, at the mouth of the Columbia, 1805-1806: “In nearly 4 months, rain fell on all but 12 days.” Why I would never want to live in the Pacific Northwest!
Lincoln was elected President in 1860, without winning a single electoral vote in the South. Even before his Inauguration, Southern states started to secede. Brand speculates: what if Louisiana and Texas hadn’t seceded? Lincoln had to maintain America’s access to the Mississippi — but would he have let the others go, as a “rump country on the wrong side of history”?
Highly recommended, if you are interested in Western history. 4.4 stars.
". . .Lewis and Clark’s 28-month, 8,000-mile journey from St. Louis to Oregon and back not only represented an amazing feat of courage and endurance but established the precedent for federal sponsorship of exploration and scientific discovery that we still adhere to today. And despite the excitement and national pride that the expedition elicited, he reminds us that it was also something of a letdown. In dispatching the Corps of Discovery, Jefferson was hoping to find a navigable route to the West Coast, to open trade with the Indians and to plant the American flag in Oregon, which was also claimed by Great Britain. But after learning of those cataracts on the Missouri and Columbia, the president reluctantly concluded the Far West might be too remote ever to join the United States, and he believed it was more likely to become an independent republic. And so, Mr. Brands writes, “the disappointments attached to the Lewis and Clark expedition set the pattern for many disappointments to follow. Time and again Americans would project their dreams onto the West and be disappointed. . . .”
". . . Mr. Brands takes pleasure in explaining how things work and has studded the book with illuminating asides. He describes the lifeways of the beaver and the annual cycle of a fur trapper. He catalogs the daily routine of a wagon train. He shows how the quintessentially western industries of gold mining, cattle-raising and farming outgrew their small-scale origins and soon became as industrialized as the manufacturing done at factories back east. He explains how the introduction of the horse fundamentally changed Native American culture and how the tribes’ decentralized governance sometimes increased the likelihood of violence in the face of white encroachment.
This isn’t a book of white hats and black hats. Neither does Mr. Brands shy away from the less heroic episodes of western history. From the beginning, he reminds us, the region was a chaotic, dangerous place. In fact, he considers violence, “humans killing one another in the struggle for control of Western resources,” as “the defining characteristic of the West.”
WSJ review: https://www.wsj.com/articles/dreams-o... (Paywalled. As always, I'm happy to email a copy to non-subscribers)
You might also read the Kirkus review for a quick, short look: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
I did skim some of the history I already knew well, but Brand is such a good writer that I read almost all of his account of the Lewis & Clark expedition, even though I had previously read the expedition journal. Anecdote: in their dismal winter camp, at the mouth of the Columbia, 1805-1806: “In nearly 4 months, rain fell on all but 12 days.” Why I would never want to live in the Pacific Northwest!
Lincoln was elected President in 1860, without winning a single electoral vote in the South. Even before his Inauguration, Southern states started to secede. Brand speculates: what if Louisiana and Texas hadn’t seceded? Lincoln had to maintain America’s access to the Mississippi — but would he have let the others go, as a “rump country on the wrong side of history”?
Highly recommended, if you are interested in Western history. 4.4 stars.
April 29, 2020
Dreams of El Dorado: A History of The American West was a panoramic and overarching view of the settling of the American West by author H. W. Brands, that left one in awe of the history unfolding in such dramatic fashion. From President Thomas Jefferson recognizing the importance of expansion into the western part of the country and buoyed by Napoleon's offer to sell Louisiana to the United States, this young country began its exploration westward. Beginning with the expedition of Lewis and Clark followed by the migration west by courageous Americans and the sacrifice that entailed, to the discovery of gold in California and the implementation of the railroad connecting the eastern part of America to the west. Brands also touches on the different native American tribes and how they were impacted by this migration west as the concept of "Manifest Destiny" was implemented. Having grown up in the American West, much of this has been imprinted on me in bits and pieces but I must say that having such a complete chronology of this most interesting time in American history was invaluable.
"But beyond doubt they were many more settlers than had ever ventured to the American West at once. Descriptions of the westering army caught the American imagination: a mighty people was on the march. They were the American dream in motion. Even many Americans who were content to stay in the East thrilled about what this great migration said about the energy of their country and its bright future."
"No image in American history has been so powerful--so evocative not simply of romance and adventure but of what it means to be an American--as that of the cowboy. Astride his horse, etched against a lonely horizon, the cowboy epitomizes individualism, integrity, strength. The cowboy guards his herd; he guards his nation's identity."
"Roosevelt wouldn't have been much of a politician if he hadn't hitched his White House agenda to the nostalgia for the West. Roosevelt was the first Western president in the sense of being the first to have spent significant time in the West and to take a serious interest in issues peculiar to the West."
"Roosevelt died in 1919. The most famous image that marked his passing was a sketch called 'The Long, Long Trail,' which showed him in cowboy gear riding a spectral horse into a Western sky. Other figures from the earlier West had gone before."
"But beyond doubt they were many more settlers than had ever ventured to the American West at once. Descriptions of the westering army caught the American imagination: a mighty people was on the march. They were the American dream in motion. Even many Americans who were content to stay in the East thrilled about what this great migration said about the energy of their country and its bright future."
"No image in American history has been so powerful--so evocative not simply of romance and adventure but of what it means to be an American--as that of the cowboy. Astride his horse, etched against a lonely horizon, the cowboy epitomizes individualism, integrity, strength. The cowboy guards his herd; he guards his nation's identity."
"Roosevelt wouldn't have been much of a politician if he hadn't hitched his White House agenda to the nostalgia for the West. Roosevelt was the first Western president in the sense of being the first to have spent significant time in the West and to take a serious interest in issues peculiar to the West."
"Roosevelt died in 1919. The most famous image that marked his passing was a sketch called 'The Long, Long Trail,' which showed him in cowboy gear riding a spectral horse into a Western sky. Other figures from the earlier West had gone before."
August 3, 2019
This will make a great research tool for those looking to understand some of the history of events like the Gold Rush of 1849 or the Indian Wars. Sadly, there are connections missing between events and it feels as though the author isn't making a coherent argument or telling a full story. That's not to say the individual chapters/vignettes aren't well told, just that there seems to be more here that is needed for a real understanding of how the American West evolved.
ARC provided by publisher.
ARC provided by publisher.
October 15, 2024
Review to come.
November 4, 2020
When I think of the American West, it’s me as a kid masquerading as cowboy and Indian during carneval or playing games with friends. It‘s the fiction of Apache Winnetou by Karl May, Cooper‘s Leatherstocking Tales or watching countless Western flicks or the Bonanza series. It‘s a dream.
Not so this book which gives a real account of that famous time, as it is a history book written by a renowned specialist and multiple Pulitzer finalist author.
This might startle some readers who waded through countless dry historical figures and dates during school.
Not so this book, which gives us a lively narrated description, explaining the daily life of settlers on their way or of the Natives using authentic voices. It draws a comprehensible picture of those times that fills the reader’s mind and keeps them engaged. At times, it reads more like a fiction when it uses direct citations from notebooks of historical persons, but it never makes up elements like a historical fiction would do. It mostly circumvents the historical stance of interpretation and doesn’t bother the reading flow with academic footnotes (it has all needed citations in the appendix).
The author narrows the scope: Quakers and Leatherstocking‘s time is way in the past. Instead, it picks up with Jefferson‘s acquisition of Lousianna (which isn’t that tiny state but the whole west of the Mississippi) up to Teddy Roosevelt as a cowboy in the President‘s seat.
I‘ve got a vast amount of insights and wouldn’t want to start citing, as it wouldn’t end soon. The book covered the exploration of the Missouri down to Oregon‘s Pacific coast, the first religious missionary, the migration of Texas from a Mexican district to an independent state ending as a US nation. You‘ll find the Californian gold-rush, the building of the transcontinental railroad binding the Pacific States to the main country, the question of slavery and the civil war, The cattle drives by cowboys, and many of those famous battles with Indians.
In summary: it has everything in it, what one would expect from an overview book. And it reads tremendously engaging, never letting you drop interest. It‘s done such a great job, that I fully recommend it to everyone interested in that time.
Not so this book which gives a real account of that famous time, as it is a history book written by a renowned specialist and multiple Pulitzer finalist author.
This might startle some readers who waded through countless dry historical figures and dates during school.
Not so this book, which gives us a lively narrated description, explaining the daily life of settlers on their way or of the Natives using authentic voices. It draws a comprehensible picture of those times that fills the reader’s mind and keeps them engaged. At times, it reads more like a fiction when it uses direct citations from notebooks of historical persons, but it never makes up elements like a historical fiction would do. It mostly circumvents the historical stance of interpretation and doesn’t bother the reading flow with academic footnotes (it has all needed citations in the appendix).
The author narrows the scope: Quakers and Leatherstocking‘s time is way in the past. Instead, it picks up with Jefferson‘s acquisition of Lousianna (which isn’t that tiny state but the whole west of the Mississippi) up to Teddy Roosevelt as a cowboy in the President‘s seat.
I‘ve got a vast amount of insights and wouldn’t want to start citing, as it wouldn’t end soon. The book covered the exploration of the Missouri down to Oregon‘s Pacific coast, the first religious missionary, the migration of Texas from a Mexican district to an independent state ending as a US nation. You‘ll find the Californian gold-rush, the building of the transcontinental railroad binding the Pacific States to the main country, the question of slavery and the civil war, The cattle drives by cowboys, and many of those famous battles with Indians.
In summary: it has everything in it, what one would expect from an overview book. And it reads tremendously engaging, never letting you drop interest. It‘s done such a great job, that I fully recommend it to everyone interested in that time.
August 3, 2020
Brands's historical method is the story rather than analysis and interpretation of events. So Dreams of El Dorado is the story of the American west rather than its history. All the iconic events are here, framed by 2 presidents: Thomas Jefferson who sprung the Lewis and Clark Expedition into the newly-acquired Louisiana Purchase, and Theodore Roosevelt, the 1st modern president to see the west's potential for both industrial and recreational development. We're familiar with the events recounted here: the story of The Alamo, the story of the wagon trains, of the gold rush, of cattle drives and the building of the transcontinental railroad, much more. The stories are told using firsthand accounts and language. It's an acceptable way of doing history, but in my opinion using only firsthand accounts roots the stories in a narrative layer where facts may have been misunderstood or even missed, therefore inadvertently obscuring key elements and ultimately meaning Brands doesn't tell the story well. My best example of this weakness is the Custer massacre at the Little Big Horn. We know quite a bit about the events of that June day considering most of the story has come down to us through Indian oral traditions. Brands lets the legendary Black Elk tell the Little Big Horn. Black Elk was there, 13-years old, but his telling amounts to a vague sketch of the fight viewed through his own terrified actions. Brands is satisfied with this version of the Custer fight, but I think it illustrates his difficulties in telling the story of the west completely and accurately in this way, and it makes a reader question the accuracy of other stories. The overarching narrative in its entirety, a century of history in that immense landscape crisscrossed by a diversity of peoples and motives, is far too big to be told in a single volume of 481 pages, anyway. The result of trying to record such a history in so vast a land and in such an enormous century of change is the slight Dreams of El Dorado.
September 8, 2019
I received a copy of this book as part of a Goodreads giveaway.
H.W. Brands' new book is an ambitious one: the story of the American west, both the history and the myth. Beginning with John Jacob Astor and the fur trade, stopping along to tell of revolutions in Texas, missionaries in Oregon, gold and land rushes in multiple territories, Mormons and ranchers, railroad expansion and native tribe decimation, Dreams Of El Dorado is a fascinating study in the history of how the American frontier was transformed. The writing is balanced, in that Brands does not shy away from telling of the terrible toll native peoples paid while also describing the courage and grit of the settlers.
Additionally, Brands tackles to a certain degree the myth of the American west; particularly interesting to me is how the "rugged individualism" that to this day is so associated with the American West developed in a area that owes much of it's existence to the Federal government, its interventions and its army. He also explores the way the Western experience helped Teddy Roosevelt create his own myth, one that helped propel him from the son of Eastern wealth to America's first Western President.
A very readable, informative and entertaining book.
H.W. Brands' new book is an ambitious one: the story of the American west, both the history and the myth. Beginning with John Jacob Astor and the fur trade, stopping along to tell of revolutions in Texas, missionaries in Oregon, gold and land rushes in multiple territories, Mormons and ranchers, railroad expansion and native tribe decimation, Dreams Of El Dorado is a fascinating study in the history of how the American frontier was transformed. The writing is balanced, in that Brands does not shy away from telling of the terrible toll native peoples paid while also describing the courage and grit of the settlers.
Additionally, Brands tackles to a certain degree the myth of the American west; particularly interesting to me is how the "rugged individualism" that to this day is so associated with the American West developed in a area that owes much of it's existence to the Federal government, its interventions and its army. He also explores the way the Western experience helped Teddy Roosevelt create his own myth, one that helped propel him from the son of Eastern wealth to America's first Western President.
A very readable, informative and entertaining book.
November 27, 2020
Historian H. W. Brands tells the story of the American West, including tales of the early fur trappers, the Lewis and Clark expedition, the mountain men, the beginnings of Texas, the Oregon Trail, the Gold Rush, the Native Americans, and the first cowboy in the White House. Brands zooms out for each chapter and then zooms in on a story that isn't particularly well known, but is especially emblematic of the founding of the west. There are moments of comedy as well as moments of drama. It's a fascinating story.
#2020ReadNonFic
#2020ReadNonFic
September 23, 2019
I won this book in a goodreads drawing.
A popular history consisting of various histories of chapters of the American West. Most are pretty interesting and entertaining.
A popular history consisting of various histories of chapters of the American West. Most are pretty interesting and entertaining.
July 15, 2021
A wonderful look at the history of the western US through brief stories of settlers and natives and the countryside. There are several timeframes I'd like to learn more about but this book is a great way to get a general idea of what happened as the west was settled.
April 26, 2020
A sprawling history of the American West without much focus.
The author focuses unduly on certain topics to the detriment of others. Perhaps as much as 40% of the book focuses on the Oregon Trail, which becomes quite tedious. Indian wars play a major role, but there is not so much as a sentence on the 40-year war with the Apaches in the Southwest.
Additionally, some of the most fascinating phases of the Old West, like cowboys and cattle drives are given a passing glance in one short chapter. Other critical topics, such as the role of the Santa Fe trade or just any mention of the 500-year history of European civilization in New Mexico are not even given a nod. It’s as if the author forgot about New Mexico and the Southwest: a truly bizarre outcome for a book about El Dorado. After all, that term was used by the Spanish in reference to New Mexico.
This book would be better described as a detailed account of the Oregon Trail, with a smattering of other historical events thrown-in.
The author focuses unduly on certain topics to the detriment of others. Perhaps as much as 40% of the book focuses on the Oregon Trail, which becomes quite tedious. Indian wars play a major role, but there is not so much as a sentence on the 40-year war with the Apaches in the Southwest.
Additionally, some of the most fascinating phases of the Old West, like cowboys and cattle drives are given a passing glance in one short chapter. Other critical topics, such as the role of the Santa Fe trade or just any mention of the 500-year history of European civilization in New Mexico are not even given a nod. It’s as if the author forgot about New Mexico and the Southwest: a truly bizarre outcome for a book about El Dorado. After all, that term was used by the Spanish in reference to New Mexico.
This book would be better described as a detailed account of the Oregon Trail, with a smattering of other historical events thrown-in.
July 21, 2025
Brands writes history worth reading! This history of the American West from the time of the Louisiana Purchase until 1900 is not a dry academic work, but a story well told about explorers, cowboys, Indians, and gold minters. It's about life and death in the discovery and settlement of the Western states. If you like American history, you will love this one!
April 14, 2022
“Epic in scale”; that’s the blurb. In my experience although epics often have considerable value, they miss some detail. That’s the case with Dreams. There are mistakes. For me the most glaring were in the detail of Custer’s Last Stand. Brands states that Crooks was subordinate to Custer, actually the opposite was true. I believe he is also mistaken/confused about the nature of the battle.
I assume there are other shortcomings, but despite them I must admit that I learned a lot about: the extreme difficulty of crossing the Rockies and other mountain ranges with boats, but without a map; the controversy with Britain over the Oregon territory; the run-up to the Mexican-American War; the impact of the Gold Rush; the transcontinental railroad; the multiple displacements of multiple discreet groups of Native Americans; the establishment of the Mormons (including coverage of the Massacre); the cattle culture; the corn culture; and most significantly to me, the essential need for big government to manage aridity (thereby introducing SOCIALISM to the USA!).
Brands breaks the book up into short, convenient chapters. Highly recommended.
I assume there are other shortcomings, but despite them I must admit that I learned a lot about: the extreme difficulty of crossing the Rockies and other mountain ranges with boats, but without a map; the controversy with Britain over the Oregon territory; the run-up to the Mexican-American War; the impact of the Gold Rush; the transcontinental railroad; the multiple displacements of multiple discreet groups of Native Americans; the establishment of the Mormons (including coverage of the Massacre); the cattle culture; the corn culture; and most significantly to me, the essential need for big government to manage aridity (thereby introducing SOCIALISM to the USA!).
Brands breaks the book up into short, convenient chapters. Highly recommended.
January 17, 2020
I have read other books by H.W. Brands in the past and overall, I enjoy his writing style.
Dreams of El Dorado tells the story of the American West starting with the Louisiana Purchase and ending with the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. The book is quite long, but it is a relatively easy read because of the short chapters and numerous topics handled.
Dreams of El Dorado is popular history at its best. The prose is succinct and the narrative moves the story along. You get a little sampling of every major incident involved in the history of the west, but the overall theme does not get lost in the details.
I enjoyed the book very much and the insights from Brands were effective.
Dreams of El Dorado tells the story of the American West starting with the Louisiana Purchase and ending with the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. The book is quite long, but it is a relatively easy read because of the short chapters and numerous topics handled.
Dreams of El Dorado is popular history at its best. The prose is succinct and the narrative moves the story along. You get a little sampling of every major incident involved in the history of the west, but the overall theme does not get lost in the details.
I enjoyed the book very much and the insights from Brands were effective.
January 29, 2020
Wow. I don't know where to start with this book. I was absolutely captivated by the narrative style. -Disclaimer- I had read another of this author's previous works, a biography of U.S. Grant, so my opinion might not be exactly neutral. Anyway, this book was a pleasant surprise from start to finish. This book should be required reading for all high school students. We are losing touch with reality in small pieces by not studying past history with enough vigor. A good starting point for anyone interested in the American West and its history.
April 3, 2023
My ideal history reading. Easy to read and full of interesting stories. Since it covers a couple hundred years of history of the entire American West (beginning sometime around the Louisiana Purchase) and isn't a huge book (480 pages), each topic/chapter is only a quick summary/narrative/biography hitting on prominent events/historical figures.
October 7, 2025
I have always struggled to conclude if America has its own culture; or if its English heritage combined with the worlds highest immigration rate has prevented such a development. The foundation of the American West is the closest and most accurate one could get to identifying where American culture started and even what it is today. H.W Brands addresses its most prominent characteristics: the expansion and dependence on the federal government, the horrific violence, and, of course, the American Dream.
March 29, 2020
This is a very good one volume history of the American West. It’s clearly very well researched and does not shrink from the negative aspects of ”Go West young man!” Weirdly, I got a little annoyed with all the primary sources - very unlike me as I usually appreciate such detail. Somehow though, I was hoping to hear a bit more analysis and interpretation of the sources rather than just the recitation of the diaries, letters, newspaper articles, etc. That being said, I came away with a much better and wholistic view of how the West was “won” and what was lost as a result.
A solid 4 stars.
A solid 4 stars.
September 3, 2023
This book did a great job summarizing the entire story of the American West. It was all encompassing and covered just about every aspect of the West that I wanted to read about. Brands does a great job taking on such a large idea and telling great stories
October 4, 2023
Interesting read. FULL of history, and the author did a great job of comparing certain events and circumstances of the past and present. Enjoyed this book a lot. (One of my favorite authors) 5⭐️
December 6, 2023
I loved this book. He touched on so many individual, interesting stories. California’s statehood tied up with the Missouri Compromise. Gold rush and its impact. Teddy Roosevelt. And the many ordinary people that helped tell various stories.
June 3, 2020
Brands’ overview of the settling of the American West, from the expedition of Lewis and Clark to the transcontinental railroad, tears apart the popular notion of a region settled by lone individuals. Federal funding and policy led to the western movement - but it doesn’t make the story of these years any less interesting. Brands’ engaging narrative style, his careful selection of the events that brought these vast lands into the United States, and his profiles of the many engaging people involved had me turning pages!
February 9, 2021
Brands has a way with words. A skillful writer and film commentator, he has woven together an engaging history of the American West from the Lewis and Clark Expedition through the Massacre at Wounded Knee. Displaying his skills as a professional historian, he relies on the primary sources to speak for themselves, as each chapter is seemingly narrated by someone who lived in that time and place and experienced the trials of frontier life.
Brands introduces the story with a chapter on Teddy Roosevelt's failed attempt to be a cattle baron just before the great cattle die off in 1887-1888. His conclusion is that the story illustrates perfectly the allure and danger of the West. The belief in rugged individualism to tame the wild, brave the native, and strike it rich is a common conception of the West. Brands ultimately argues that experience was more often the exception than the norm. He begins the book proper with the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Most of the chapters short with about ten (10) pages each working together to form a 500+ page book. The chapter size is a good inducement to space the reading into digestible pieces. The prose itself is fluid and does not betray a hint of academic jargon. This book is written for the masses. Even with a cursory interest in the history of the American West, I found myself eagerly reading further and further. Brands balances the horror with the mundane. Every page is a teaser much like a horror film. What will happen next? Dare I say the book was exciting?
In a few instances the personal stories cross one-another. This allows Brands to create an overall narrative much like an epic that crosses generations. These overlaps are unfortunately rare; but the few present make the book much more enjoyable. There is an overall narrative of how brief the west was wild. Lewis and Clark left St. Louis in 1803. The Massacre at Wounded Knee was less than 100 years later in 1890. By that point nearly the blank map between California and Kansas City had been filled in.
The wild of the Wild West is shown by the leap-frogging of colonization. Americans raced across the prairies and mountains to colonize the West Coast. Then they slowly backtracked to colonize the space in-between. The frontier lacked rules and law enforcement. Skill, power, and luck allowed folks to thrive or simply survive. So many stories in the book show how dangerous the west could be. There is a sense that Brands may be making it more sensational than it was. As a gifted story-teller he wants to be invited to talk on more and more documentaries. If it was so violent and terrible, why did so many people keep racing to be a part of it?
Brands includes flowery language and grandiose ideas. He is an excellent story-teller. But the history of the West is too much for a single volume. He barely mentions the Southwest at all except a very slow description of exploring the Colorado River. Wyatt Earp, the Clanton Gang, and the Shootout at the O.K. Corral merit less than a paragraph. Dodge, KS is briefly mentioned in a chapter that shows just how short-lived the big cattle runs and the romantic image of the cowboy really were. The ever-creeping railroads made the cattle runs progressively shorter and shorter. The range wars are not mentioned at all. The lone chapter on crime and punishment focuses on San Francisco, a city that went from less than 1,000 residents to 50,000 within a couple of years (Wikipedia says 25,000 - so is Brands being sensational or overly generous?). The lack of any government meant that gangs - Regulators, Hounds, and Sydney Ducks each took a turn at civic control in an otherwise Mad Max-ian dystopia of anything goes.
The book ends with Teddy Roosevelt. Brands says the history of west ended at Wounded Knee; but he goes on for several chapters to discuss Teddy Roosevelt, the Spanish-American War, and Roosevelt's efforts at conservation. It is a fitting conclusion if somewhat dull and a bit stretched. Brands' claim that Roosevelt represented a cowboy in the White House is poignant, but forced.
Readers should not expect a full history of the west. What they will get is an engaging macro view of the subject. Brands is a great writer, an expert on the subject matter, and a visionary in how he pulls everything together into a collective narrative. It seems clear that he is more sensational than accurate; but just short of inaccurate. His style both limits the violence and indulges a human need to explore the horror of frontier violence. Many of the chapters end with death and mutilation. There is less discussion on missionary activities and more on Indian massacres of missionaries. There is less detail on the fur trade in place of raw violence between trappers and natives (or each other). Whatever his motivations, this is a magnificent tome on the American West.
Brands introduces the story with a chapter on Teddy Roosevelt's failed attempt to be a cattle baron just before the great cattle die off in 1887-1888. His conclusion is that the story illustrates perfectly the allure and danger of the West. The belief in rugged individualism to tame the wild, brave the native, and strike it rich is a common conception of the West. Brands ultimately argues that experience was more often the exception than the norm. He begins the book proper with the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Most of the chapters short with about ten (10) pages each working together to form a 500+ page book. The chapter size is a good inducement to space the reading into digestible pieces. The prose itself is fluid and does not betray a hint of academic jargon. This book is written for the masses. Even with a cursory interest in the history of the American West, I found myself eagerly reading further and further. Brands balances the horror with the mundane. Every page is a teaser much like a horror film. What will happen next? Dare I say the book was exciting?
In a few instances the personal stories cross one-another. This allows Brands to create an overall narrative much like an epic that crosses generations. These overlaps are unfortunately rare; but the few present make the book much more enjoyable. There is an overall narrative of how brief the west was wild. Lewis and Clark left St. Louis in 1803. The Massacre at Wounded Knee was less than 100 years later in 1890. By that point nearly the blank map between California and Kansas City had been filled in.
The wild of the Wild West is shown by the leap-frogging of colonization. Americans raced across the prairies and mountains to colonize the West Coast. Then they slowly backtracked to colonize the space in-between. The frontier lacked rules and law enforcement. Skill, power, and luck allowed folks to thrive or simply survive. So many stories in the book show how dangerous the west could be. There is a sense that Brands may be making it more sensational than it was. As a gifted story-teller he wants to be invited to talk on more and more documentaries. If it was so violent and terrible, why did so many people keep racing to be a part of it?
Brands includes flowery language and grandiose ideas. He is an excellent story-teller. But the history of the West is too much for a single volume. He barely mentions the Southwest at all except a very slow description of exploring the Colorado River. Wyatt Earp, the Clanton Gang, and the Shootout at the O.K. Corral merit less than a paragraph. Dodge, KS is briefly mentioned in a chapter that shows just how short-lived the big cattle runs and the romantic image of the cowboy really were. The ever-creeping railroads made the cattle runs progressively shorter and shorter. The range wars are not mentioned at all. The lone chapter on crime and punishment focuses on San Francisco, a city that went from less than 1,000 residents to 50,000 within a couple of years (Wikipedia says 25,000 - so is Brands being sensational or overly generous?). The lack of any government meant that gangs - Regulators, Hounds, and Sydney Ducks each took a turn at civic control in an otherwise Mad Max-ian dystopia of anything goes.
The book ends with Teddy Roosevelt. Brands says the history of west ended at Wounded Knee; but he goes on for several chapters to discuss Teddy Roosevelt, the Spanish-American War, and Roosevelt's efforts at conservation. It is a fitting conclusion if somewhat dull and a bit stretched. Brands' claim that Roosevelt represented a cowboy in the White House is poignant, but forced.
Readers should not expect a full history of the west. What they will get is an engaging macro view of the subject. Brands is a great writer, an expert on the subject matter, and a visionary in how he pulls everything together into a collective narrative. It seems clear that he is more sensational than accurate; but just short of inaccurate. His style both limits the violence and indulges a human need to explore the horror of frontier violence. Many of the chapters end with death and mutilation. There is less discussion on missionary activities and more on Indian massacres of missionaries. There is less detail on the fur trade in place of raw violence between trappers and natives (or each other). Whatever his motivations, this is a magnificent tome on the American West.
October 16, 2022
Utilizing storytelling to inform about history is a strength of H.W. Brands, and his growing roster of nonfiction books is added to in an impressive way by Dreams of El Dorado: A History of the American West.
The University of Texas professor and historian was determined to flesh out the founding of the post-Louisiana Purchase U.S. west, and he did this effectively by looking at a number of personalities and sets of challenges.
Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery kicks off a look at the exploration of the west in the wake of the Louisiana Purchase. Lewis and Clark's interactions with the Mandans, Teton, Omahas, and Nez Perce (communion which was an important part of their mandate) were recorded, one of many times in the book during which whites would be put into direct contact with native tribes. The opening of the Pacific to settlement was an outgrowth of this journey, and much of what immediately follows centers on the northwest region. At this time, both Britain and Russia saw this area as part of their sphere of influence as much as or more than the United States.
There was no water link between Oregon and the Mississippi basin found, leaving President Jefferson and many promoters of western settlement disappointed with the ultimate outcome.
John Jacob Astor became acutely interested in the Oregon region-in particular the trade of fur-following the Corps of Discovery's safe arrival home.
The second chapter tells of Astor's attempt to send simultaneous overland and waterborne contingents to Oregon; the Tonquin would travel via the Cape of Good Horn to the Pacific and Hawaii and on to Oregon to construct a fort, while the overland expedition would loosely follow Lewis and Clark’s trail and improvise at points along the way. While the Tonquin was at the mouth of the Columbia River in six months, the latter group ran into difficulties on the Snake River and Blue Mountains. As a result, it took well over a year for the overland expedition of Astor’s men to arrive at their destination.
Brands does a great job telling about the Astorian expedition. As rough as things were for the men on foot, the fate of the Tonquin and its sailors while waiting for the arrival of the second part of their expedition was downright disastrous. Captain Jonathon Thorn had a tough go of it during this time in Oregon, losing his own life and many of his crew due to dangerous Columbia River rapids and a lethal run-in with the local Chinook Indian tribe. This was an early example of the violent downsides engendered by miscommunication with Indian tribes.
The explorations of the west resulted in conflict not only with local tribes but also the Hudson’s Bay Company, which was determined to use commercial relations to keep a strong claim for Britain to the American northwest.
The Rocky Mountain Fur Company would play a role in staking U.S. claims in this area over Hudson Bay’s, and Brands used a variety of explorers to put the American westward expansion into a human context. He discusses what is labeled the “pioneering class of American mountain men,” writing a comparatively lengthy description of Joseph Meek’s westward travels for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, an organization with which Meek was a partner in alongside William Sublette. Conflict with the Blackfeet produced the story of “Colter’s Run” during Meek’s fur trapping expedition, one of many anecdotes that add a sense of suspense to Dreams of El Dorado.
While making money in the northwest was key in many of the expeditions, missionaries like New Yorkers Marcus and Narcissa Whitman also left the east to travel to that territory with a more spiritual bent. The tale of their travels, with were undertaken alongside other preachers of the Word like Henry and Eliza Spalding, was told in the “Great Migration” chapter.
The journey of the missionaries, unlike the extremely hazardous early ones of the mountain men sort of figures, opened the eyes of many easterners looking for a second lease on life. As Brands presents it, families began heading west in large numbers when it became clear this was something one did not have to be a grizzled explorer to pull off.
A book on the west would be severely lacking without weaving in Texas and California. Brands observes that “the creation of the American West….was arguably the greatest accomplishment in the history of the American federal government. The American West had been the handiwork of the original states, which antedated the Constitution and has claimed territory to the Mississippi. The West, by contrast, was called into American existence by the federal government. The overwhelming majority of land in the West was initially federal land; nearly all the Western states began life as parts of federal territories.” This would go on to define everything from how claims to gold were divvied up in California to how national parks and monuments would be set aside under President Theodore Roosevelt.
The basics of Texas’s absorption into the United States are explained. The American settlers in what was, at the time, Mexican territory would end up pushing for independence and, ultimately, American statehood. Readers can expect to hear about Santa Anna, Sam Houston, Stephen Austin, and the fighting at Gonzales as well as the story of the Alamo. While Brands, by design, does not delve particularly deep into any of these specifics, the overall strength of sections like these are built on the individual, bite-sized components.
James Marshall’s discovery of gold in California would set off the next great rush out west, and Brands (who also wrote The Age of Gold on the California gold rush) nicely sketches out the characters present in this period. Sluices and cradles; the Donner party; boom towns; the Monterey convention in California; in quick succession the books fills readers in on the unique situations created by the forty-niners’ gold rush. San Francisco’s early days and stories of groups like the Sydney Ducks will leave readers looking for further information on gold rush era topics.
The movement of the Mormons westward under Brigham Young of course get some focus as well, and this is one of many sections that could have been expanded into a book length examination of its own.
Texas and California’s respective moves into the United States’s orbit were changes wrought in no small part by the Mexican-American War and Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. These two territories came into play alongside many others soon-to-be states, kicking off a debate over which ones would be slave or free. This conflict over slave or free soil would be critical to the onset of the Civil War, and although Brands grants this a cursory explanation he nevertheless chooses to avoid sidetracking the book into discussions of battles and tactics.
Its western focus instead zeroes in on railways, which would transform the west in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. The Union Pacific and Central Pacific’s race to lay tracks for their respective railroads came into play in the book’s second half, part of what Brands labels “the grandest project of its kind in American history until then.” The Union and Central Pacific's work culminated in the driving of the golden spike in Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10th, 1869.
But entering the railroad age did not mean the end of conflicts with Native American tribes on the Plains.
Far from it, in fact.
The U.S. Army’s conflict with Crazy Horse and Chief Joseph were full of horror stories on both sides, and George Armstrong Custer’s embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Plains Indians was by no means a high point in the history of the U.S. military. But the highest ranking officer killed in the wars of the west happened courtesy of a Modoc warrior. During a meeting initially intended as a way to iron out differences with the army and the settlers they were leading the way for, Modoc leader Kintpaush shot and killed General Edward Canby at point blank range. This killing was one of many deaths and reprisals which marred the movement of whites westward.
Brands grants some to analyzing the policies of moving Indians onto reservations, taking time to look at the resistance put up to these policies by the more proud and able Native Americans. The author finds the usual good balance he achieves in his books, looking at the perspective of things from both Native individuals like Black Elk and white emigrants like the Whitman missionary family.
Dreams of El Dorado is a strongly written book, with to-the-point and simultaneously informative prose. It branches out into a lot of diverse areas when it comes to the U.S.’s creation of a western sphere of influence, and the strength of the book is that it will leave readers with many different areas to further research and learn about.
Those seeking to discover more about events ranging from Texas independence to the the gold rush to the building of railroads will enjoy this book. This excellent work of nonfiction is deserving of a five star rating.
-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
The University of Texas professor and historian was determined to flesh out the founding of the post-Louisiana Purchase U.S. west, and he did this effectively by looking at a number of personalities and sets of challenges.
Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery kicks off a look at the exploration of the west in the wake of the Louisiana Purchase. Lewis and Clark's interactions with the Mandans, Teton, Omahas, and Nez Perce (communion which was an important part of their mandate) were recorded, one of many times in the book during which whites would be put into direct contact with native tribes. The opening of the Pacific to settlement was an outgrowth of this journey, and much of what immediately follows centers on the northwest region. At this time, both Britain and Russia saw this area as part of their sphere of influence as much as or more than the United States.
There was no water link between Oregon and the Mississippi basin found, leaving President Jefferson and many promoters of western settlement disappointed with the ultimate outcome.
John Jacob Astor became acutely interested in the Oregon region-in particular the trade of fur-following the Corps of Discovery's safe arrival home.
The second chapter tells of Astor's attempt to send simultaneous overland and waterborne contingents to Oregon; the Tonquin would travel via the Cape of Good Horn to the Pacific and Hawaii and on to Oregon to construct a fort, while the overland expedition would loosely follow Lewis and Clark’s trail and improvise at points along the way. While the Tonquin was at the mouth of the Columbia River in six months, the latter group ran into difficulties on the Snake River and Blue Mountains. As a result, it took well over a year for the overland expedition of Astor’s men to arrive at their destination.
Brands does a great job telling about the Astorian expedition. As rough as things were for the men on foot, the fate of the Tonquin and its sailors while waiting for the arrival of the second part of their expedition was downright disastrous. Captain Jonathon Thorn had a tough go of it during this time in Oregon, losing his own life and many of his crew due to dangerous Columbia River rapids and a lethal run-in with the local Chinook Indian tribe. This was an early example of the violent downsides engendered by miscommunication with Indian tribes.
The explorations of the west resulted in conflict not only with local tribes but also the Hudson’s Bay Company, which was determined to use commercial relations to keep a strong claim for Britain to the American northwest.
The Rocky Mountain Fur Company would play a role in staking U.S. claims in this area over Hudson Bay’s, and Brands used a variety of explorers to put the American westward expansion into a human context. He discusses what is labeled the “pioneering class of American mountain men,” writing a comparatively lengthy description of Joseph Meek’s westward travels for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, an organization with which Meek was a partner in alongside William Sublette. Conflict with the Blackfeet produced the story of “Colter’s Run” during Meek’s fur trapping expedition, one of many anecdotes that add a sense of suspense to Dreams of El Dorado.
While making money in the northwest was key in many of the expeditions, missionaries like New Yorkers Marcus and Narcissa Whitman also left the east to travel to that territory with a more spiritual bent. The tale of their travels, with were undertaken alongside other preachers of the Word like Henry and Eliza Spalding, was told in the “Great Migration” chapter.
The journey of the missionaries, unlike the extremely hazardous early ones of the mountain men sort of figures, opened the eyes of many easterners looking for a second lease on life. As Brands presents it, families began heading west in large numbers when it became clear this was something one did not have to be a grizzled explorer to pull off.
A book on the west would be severely lacking without weaving in Texas and California. Brands observes that “the creation of the American West….was arguably the greatest accomplishment in the history of the American federal government. The American West had been the handiwork of the original states, which antedated the Constitution and has claimed territory to the Mississippi. The West, by contrast, was called into American existence by the federal government. The overwhelming majority of land in the West was initially federal land; nearly all the Western states began life as parts of federal territories.” This would go on to define everything from how claims to gold were divvied up in California to how national parks and monuments would be set aside under President Theodore Roosevelt.
The basics of Texas’s absorption into the United States are explained. The American settlers in what was, at the time, Mexican territory would end up pushing for independence and, ultimately, American statehood. Readers can expect to hear about Santa Anna, Sam Houston, Stephen Austin, and the fighting at Gonzales as well as the story of the Alamo. While Brands, by design, does not delve particularly deep into any of these specifics, the overall strength of sections like these are built on the individual, bite-sized components.
James Marshall’s discovery of gold in California would set off the next great rush out west, and Brands (who also wrote The Age of Gold on the California gold rush) nicely sketches out the characters present in this period. Sluices and cradles; the Donner party; boom towns; the Monterey convention in California; in quick succession the books fills readers in on the unique situations created by the forty-niners’ gold rush. San Francisco’s early days and stories of groups like the Sydney Ducks will leave readers looking for further information on gold rush era topics.
The movement of the Mormons westward under Brigham Young of course get some focus as well, and this is one of many sections that could have been expanded into a book length examination of its own.
Texas and California’s respective moves into the United States’s orbit were changes wrought in no small part by the Mexican-American War and Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. These two territories came into play alongside many others soon-to-be states, kicking off a debate over which ones would be slave or free. This conflict over slave or free soil would be critical to the onset of the Civil War, and although Brands grants this a cursory explanation he nevertheless chooses to avoid sidetracking the book into discussions of battles and tactics.
Its western focus instead zeroes in on railways, which would transform the west in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. The Union Pacific and Central Pacific’s race to lay tracks for their respective railroads came into play in the book’s second half, part of what Brands labels “the grandest project of its kind in American history until then.” The Union and Central Pacific's work culminated in the driving of the golden spike in Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10th, 1869.
But entering the railroad age did not mean the end of conflicts with Native American tribes on the Plains.
Far from it, in fact.
The U.S. Army’s conflict with Crazy Horse and Chief Joseph were full of horror stories on both sides, and George Armstrong Custer’s embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Plains Indians was by no means a high point in the history of the U.S. military. But the highest ranking officer killed in the wars of the west happened courtesy of a Modoc warrior. During a meeting initially intended as a way to iron out differences with the army and the settlers they were leading the way for, Modoc leader Kintpaush shot and killed General Edward Canby at point blank range. This killing was one of many deaths and reprisals which marred the movement of whites westward.
Brands grants some to analyzing the policies of moving Indians onto reservations, taking time to look at the resistance put up to these policies by the more proud and able Native Americans. The author finds the usual good balance he achieves in his books, looking at the perspective of things from both Native individuals like Black Elk and white emigrants like the Whitman missionary family.
Dreams of El Dorado is a strongly written book, with to-the-point and simultaneously informative prose. It branches out into a lot of diverse areas when it comes to the U.S.’s creation of a western sphere of influence, and the strength of the book is that it will leave readers with many different areas to further research and learn about.
Those seeking to discover more about events ranging from Texas independence to the the gold rush to the building of railroads will enjoy this book. This excellent work of nonfiction is deserving of a five star rating.
-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
July 10, 2020
My 10-Year Itch
Recommended by Sean H., awesome historical perspectives, though author comes so close to including the Buffalo Soldiers, AFTER the Rough Riders, but fails miserably. True, some mention of Black Cowboys and their influence as well as suitable handling of 1st Nationers’ POVs, though not nearly as comprehensive as S. C. Gwynne’s,
“Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History”.
My biggest take-away was my re-vitalization and excitement for exploring our nations “best idea”: America’s National Parks!
John Muir, one of the gods of these great systems, was Da Man!
Now Roosevelt had his flaws, DON’T get me started! However, had he NOT been a rancher first in N.D., a state I’ll surely visit my next cross country Road Trippin’.
"I have always said I would not have been President had it not been for my experience in North Dakota."
and
“I grow very fond of this place, and it certainly has a desolate, grim beauty of its own, that has a curious fascination for me." (Roosevelt in his book -Hunting Trips of a Ranchman and The Wilderness Hunter -)
“There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm. The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased and not impaired in value.”
This remains the struggle, maintaining this country’s greatest natural treasures forever.
I bought and started watching Ken Burn’s PBS 12-hour, 6-part Series on Amazon for only $18.
http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/
From min 42 of E1
“No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. Whether as seen carving the lines of the mountains with glaciers, or gathering matter into stars, or planning the movements of water, or gardening - still all is Beauty.
When I discovered a new plant, I sat down beside it for a minute or a day, to make its acquaintance and hear what it had to tell... I asked the boulders I met, whence they came and whither they were going.”
I’ll be heading back to Yosemite, Yellowstone, visiting new parks in the upper western quadrant and more in the lower southwest quadrant which we didn’t have time for back in 2010.
Call it The 10-Year Itch.
So, any of you who’d gone trekking, camping, foraging exactly 10 years ago June 25 - Aug 15, visiting approximately 10 National and 4 State Parks, through 13 states, let me know! Next Cross Country RT begins summer 2022.
As, Muir said, I am, “Doubly happy, however, is the man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach.”
Recommended by Sean H., awesome historical perspectives, though author comes so close to including the Buffalo Soldiers, AFTER the Rough Riders, but fails miserably. True, some mention of Black Cowboys and their influence as well as suitable handling of 1st Nationers’ POVs, though not nearly as comprehensive as S. C. Gwynne’s,
“Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History”.
My biggest take-away was my re-vitalization and excitement for exploring our nations “best idea”: America’s National Parks!
John Muir, one of the gods of these great systems, was Da Man!
Now Roosevelt had his flaws, DON’T get me started! However, had he NOT been a rancher first in N.D., a state I’ll surely visit my next cross country Road Trippin’.
"I have always said I would not have been President had it not been for my experience in North Dakota."
and
“I grow very fond of this place, and it certainly has a desolate, grim beauty of its own, that has a curious fascination for me." (Roosevelt in his book -Hunting Trips of a Ranchman and The Wilderness Hunter -)
“There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm. The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased and not impaired in value.”
This remains the struggle, maintaining this country’s greatest natural treasures forever.
I bought and started watching Ken Burn’s PBS 12-hour, 6-part Series on Amazon for only $18.
http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/
From min 42 of E1
“No synonym for God is so perfect as Beauty. Whether as seen carving the lines of the mountains with glaciers, or gathering matter into stars, or planning the movements of water, or gardening - still all is Beauty.
When I discovered a new plant, I sat down beside it for a minute or a day, to make its acquaintance and hear what it had to tell... I asked the boulders I met, whence they came and whither they were going.”
I’ll be heading back to Yosemite, Yellowstone, visiting new parks in the upper western quadrant and more in the lower southwest quadrant which we didn’t have time for back in 2010.
Call it The 10-Year Itch.
So, any of you who’d gone trekking, camping, foraging exactly 10 years ago June 25 - Aug 15, visiting approximately 10 National and 4 State Parks, through 13 states, let me know! Next Cross Country RT begins summer 2022.
As, Muir said, I am, “Doubly happy, however, is the man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach.”
November 24, 2019
An excellent introduction to the vastness that is the American West, a region that holds perhaps the most turbulent portions of the Union's relatively brief history.
Having been born in Texas and spending significant portions of my life resident in Kansas and New Mexico, I have long held a fascination with all things Western. I grew up on the novels of Louis L'Amour and Tony Hillerman and tend to pick up fictional works by other authors solely based on their settings within the region.
However, aside from devouring Hampton Sides' excellent Blood and Thunder more than a decade ago, I had never read an historical account of the West. Until now....
Dreams of El Dorado by H. W. Brands covers the entire scope of that vast area beyond the Mississippi starting with the Corps of Discovery in the early nineteenth century and ending with our most "Western" of U. S. Presidents -- Theodore Roosevelt -- entering that office early in the twentieth century. Along the way, very few trails leading towards the Pacific are left untrod.
Numerous topics in Western history are introduced and detailed within a few short chapters each. These serve to whet the appetite to learn more. This volume has added more items to my TBR list than any single book has in recent memory. Indeed, some of those were written by H. W. Brands himself while I am intrigued enough to start reading the original Journals of Lewis and Clark and the account of John Wesley Harding's exploration of the Grand Canyon to name but two. The best history books lead to further exploration and this one is particularly rich in that regard.
There are some notable exclusions, however. I would like to have seen the Pony Express, Wells Fargo and the Butterfield Overland stage routes included not to mention more on the Western theatres of the Civil War (such as the Battle of Glorieta Pass) and New Mexican exploits by the likes of Kit Carson, Stephen Kearny and Narbona but those are minor knitpicks.
What was included was often written in a style akin to the best page-turners by the fiction writers mentioned above. I highly recommend Dreams of El Dorado as an excellent one-volume introduction to the history of the West.
Having been born in Texas and spending significant portions of my life resident in Kansas and New Mexico, I have long held a fascination with all things Western. I grew up on the novels of Louis L'Amour and Tony Hillerman and tend to pick up fictional works by other authors solely based on their settings within the region.
However, aside from devouring Hampton Sides' excellent Blood and Thunder more than a decade ago, I had never read an historical account of the West. Until now....
Dreams of El Dorado by H. W. Brands covers the entire scope of that vast area beyond the Mississippi starting with the Corps of Discovery in the early nineteenth century and ending with our most "Western" of U. S. Presidents -- Theodore Roosevelt -- entering that office early in the twentieth century. Along the way, very few trails leading towards the Pacific are left untrod.
Numerous topics in Western history are introduced and detailed within a few short chapters each. These serve to whet the appetite to learn more. This volume has added more items to my TBR list than any single book has in recent memory. Indeed, some of those were written by H. W. Brands himself while I am intrigued enough to start reading the original Journals of Lewis and Clark and the account of John Wesley Harding's exploration of the Grand Canyon to name but two. The best history books lead to further exploration and this one is particularly rich in that regard.
There are some notable exclusions, however. I would like to have seen the Pony Express, Wells Fargo and the Butterfield Overland stage routes included not to mention more on the Western theatres of the Civil War (such as the Battle of Glorieta Pass) and New Mexican exploits by the likes of Kit Carson, Stephen Kearny and Narbona but those are minor knitpicks.
What was included was often written in a style akin to the best page-turners by the fiction writers mentioned above. I highly recommend Dreams of El Dorado as an excellent one-volume introduction to the history of the West.
August 5, 2020
Imagine if you were at a dinner party and one person decided to share for a few hours a very broad subject. It would be broken into somewhat sub-topics, the person would give some overarching conceptual remarks and also give some personal stories when discussing each sub-topic. Sometimes you wondered why the person would be heavy in one detailed aspect, but it didn't hinder the overall story telling that much. You would leave the dinner not an expert in any part of the subject at all, but you'd have a much better understanding.
This book is that, in written form.
Brands decides to talk about the American West in the 19th century and try to cover everything. Some items include: Lewis & Clark expedition, the fight for Texas, the Oregon Trail, missionary work (Protestant, Catholics, Mormons, all of 'em), Gold Rush, Indian conflict, Industrialization of the west and any chance to mention Teddy Roosevelt.
Overall, this book keeps your attention and overall has a fast pace, just because in order to cover everything in 480 pages, Brands has to have some brevity. There were some dry parts that deviated from the pace, but it didn't stop me from always wanting to pick this book up for a few minutes and read at any chance I had. It will probably not be the greatest literature work you'll read this year, but it will be one of the best books to help you be informed on the history of the United States in the 19th century.
This book is that, in written form.
Brands decides to talk about the American West in the 19th century and try to cover everything. Some items include: Lewis & Clark expedition, the fight for Texas, the Oregon Trail, missionary work (Protestant, Catholics, Mormons, all of 'em), Gold Rush, Indian conflict, Industrialization of the west and any chance to mention Teddy Roosevelt.
Overall, this book keeps your attention and overall has a fast pace, just because in order to cover everything in 480 pages, Brands has to have some brevity. There were some dry parts that deviated from the pace, but it didn't stop me from always wanting to pick this book up for a few minutes and read at any chance I had. It will probably not be the greatest literature work you'll read this year, but it will be one of the best books to help you be informed on the history of the United States in the 19th century.
August 28, 2021
4.5 stars. Very readable and interesting. I learned stuff I didn't know, and got a refresher of stuff I'd learned before. All the big players are here. The timeline is bookended by Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt...from the Lewis and Clark expedition to the creation of the Hetch Hetchy dam near Yosemite. Brands gives a really great overview of the major events/forces that developed and shaped the American west. There are good notes at the back, and I know I'll be looking at those for further reading, because he has a way of One Gopher: he whets the appetite without bedding it back down (sorry, bad reference to O Brother Where Art Thou). For example, in describing the Powell exploration of the Grand Canyon, he tells about 3 men who departed partway through the trip, convinced Powell would not come out alive...but what happened to them? Mystery! Now I want to read more about that. You gotta love a book that makes you want to read more. He uses primary sources when possible. It's not super academic/scholarly, and I would have liked many more maps (there was only 1) as well as more dates here and there, for reference. Even without dates on every page, he does a good job of showing the progression of the settlement of West and tying the events together. Really glad I read it.
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