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Dreams of El Dorado - H. W. Brands

By H. W. Brands

Release Date: 2019-10-22

Genre: U.S. History

4.5 (87 ratings)
Read Download
From a New York Times bestselling author, a masterful history of the American West—from the California Gold Rush to the settling of Oklahoma and beyond.

"Epic in its scale, fearless in its scope, this is a bravura performance from one of our master historians." —Hampton Sides, bestselling author of Blood and Thunder 

In Dreams of El Dorado, H. W. Brands tells the thrilling panoramic story of the settling of the American West, from Lewis and Clark’s expedition in the early nineteenth century to the closing of the frontier by the early twentieth. He introduces us to explorers, mountain men, cowboys, missionaries, and soldiers, taking us from John Jacob Astor’s fur-trading campaign in Oregon to the Texas Revolution, from the California gold rush to the Oklahoma land rush. Throughout, Brands explores the contradictions of the West and explodes its longstanding myths. The West has been celebrated as the proving ground of American individualism; in reality, the West depended on collective action and federal largesse more than any other region. The West brought out the finest and basest in those who ventured there, evoking both selfless heroism and unspeakable violence. Visions of great wealth drew generations of Americans westward, but El Dorado was never more elusive than in the West.  
 
Balanced, authoritative, and masterfully told, Dreams of El Dorado sets a new standard for histories of the American West.  

Dreams of El Dorado - H. W. Brands

By H. W. Brands

Release Date: 2019-10-22

Genre: U.S. History

4.5 (87 ratings)
Read Download
From a New York Times bestselling author, a masterful history of the American West—from the California Gold Rush to the settling of Oklahoma and beyond.

"Epic in its scale, fearless in its scope, this is a bravura performance from one of our master historians." —Hampton Sides, bestselling author of Blood and Thunder 

In Dreams of El Dorado, H. W. Brands tells the thrilling panoramic story of the settling of the American West, from Lewis and Clark’s expedition in the early nineteenth century to the closing of the frontier by the early twentieth. He introduces us to explorers, mountain men, cowboys, missionaries, and soldiers, taking us from John Jacob Astor’s fur-trading campaign in Oregon to the Texas Revolution, from the California gold rush to the Oklahoma land rush. Throughout, Brands explores the contradictions of the West and explodes its longstanding myths. The West has been celebrated as the proving ground of American individualism; in reality, the West depended on collective action and federal largesse more than any other region. The West brought out the finest and basest in those who ventured there, evoking both selfless heroism and unspeakable violence. Visions of great wealth drew generations of Americans westward, but El Dorado was never more elusive than in the West.  
 
Balanced, authoritative, and masterfully told, Dreams of El Dorado sets a new standard for histories of the American West.  

More by H. W. Brands

Dreams of El Dorado

The General vs. the President

The Man Who Saved the Union

The First American

Reagan

Heirs of the Founders

Andrew Jackson

The Age of Gold

Our First Civil War

American Colossus

Traitor to His Class

Lone Star Nation

The Murder of Jim Fisk for the Love of Josie Mansfield

Woodrow Wilson

The Last Campaign

America First

The Money Men

The Zealot and the Emancipator

The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr

Founding Partisans

T.R.

The Devil We Knew

American Dreams

Greenback Planet

American Patriarch

Bound to Empire: The United States and the Philippines

The Wages of Globalism

Haiku History

African Game Trails

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