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Exploring The Explorers

March 2024
1min read


Having taught my students for more than 30 years about both the Lewis and Clark Expedition and our memory of it, I enjoyed Anthony Brandt’s excellent article “The Perilous Afterlife of the Lewis and Clark Expedition” (June/July 2004). I will not quibble with the selection of the 10 best books about the expedition, although only 2 of them—Rhonda’s on the Indians and Cutright’s on Lewis and Clark as naturalists—take anyone much beyond the traditional account. I was, however, disappointed that the list did not include Thomas P. Slaughter’s Exploring Lewis and Clark: Reflections on Men and Wilderness (Knopf, 2003), a truly unusual look at the journey. The chapters on Sacagawea and York alone are worth the price of the book.

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