Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose Great read about the Lewis and Clark Expedition, essentially an updated biography of Meriwether Lewis with the major emphasis being the expedition. Great info on American life during the late 1700's and early 1800's...it's amazing what 200 years of technology has done for the American way of life.
The actual narrative immediately surrounding the expedition is fantastic. The modern American can hardly comprehend what Lewis and Clark accomplished. Technology has done so much to remove many of the slightest inconveniences and almost all of the serious ones as relating to health and physical discomfort. Those were some tough bastards. It was a grueling trip and they battled the terrain, the elements, starvation, and more. The Indians could have killed them all a bunch of times over, instead they saved them at various instances which is a miracle in itself especially given the circumstances; essentially claiming to every large group of Indians they came to that this was now American land, a white boy was now in charge of them, you will now need to answer to us and stop fighting with all the other tribes... essentially telling them that their way of life needed to be immediately and completely changed or they would all be rubbed out by white boys who would come from back east. It is likely most of this was lost in translation and for the most part not understood, or maybe it was so ridiculous that they assumed it was a lie. Luckily for them they only encountered the Blackfeet once, and it was a small group. That's a good story. The whole of the encounters with the grizzlies is some good reading as well.
This a good account of a great event in American history and there's some good hunting stories in there too;)
