J.C. Shepard’s Reviews > The Undiscovered Country: Triumph, Tragedy, and the Shaping of the American West > Status Update

“A popular little book published in 1784 by schoolteacher John Filson had made [Daniel] Boone an international hero…. Filson’s book, and countless others that followed, celebrated Boone’s deeds, and transformed him into the embodiment of Jefferson’s ideals on the frontier. A new nation found their first Western hero in Boone, the Jeffersonian pioneer, and at the same time discovered a new identity…”