ISBN: 9781501106392

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * â??Audaciousâ?¦ Life on the Mississippi sparkles.â? â??The Wall Street Journal * â??A rich mix of history, reporting, and personal introspection.â? â??St. Louis Po… Altro …

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * â??Audaciousâ?¦ Life on the Mississippi sparkles.â? â??The Wall Street Journal * â??A rich mix of history, reporting, and personal introspection.â? â??St. Louis Post-Dispatch * â??Both a travelogue and an engaging history lesson about Americaâ??s westward expansion after the Revolutionary War.â? â??Christian Science Monitor The eagerly awaited return of master American storyteller Rinker Buck, Life on the Mississippi is an epic, enchanting blend of history and adventure in which Buck builds a wooden flatboat from the grand â??flatboat eraâ? of the 1800s and sails it down the Mississippi River, illuminating the forgotten past of Americaâ??s first western frontier. Seven years ago, readers around the country fell in love with a singular American voice: Rinker Buck, whose infectious curiosity about history launched him across the West in a covered wagon pulled by mules and propelled his book about the trip, The Oregon Trail, to ten weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, Buck returns to chronicle his latest incredible adventure: building a wooden flatboat from the bygone era of the early 1800s and journeying down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. A modern-day Huck Finn, Buck casts off down the river on the flatboat Patience accompanied by an eccentric crew of daring shipmates. Over the course of his voyage, Buck steers his fragile wooden craft through narrow channels dominated by massive cargo barges, rescues his first mate gone overboard, sails blindly through fog, breaks his ribs not once but twice, and camps every night on sandbars, remote islands, and steep levees. As he charts his own journey, he also delivers a richly satisfying work of history that brings to life a lost era. The role of the flatboat in our countryâ??s evolution is far more significant than most Americans realize. Between 1800 and 1840, millions of farmers, merchants, and teenage adventurers embarked from states like Pennsylvania and Virginia on flatboats headed beyond the Appalachians to Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Like the Nile, the Thames, or the Seine before them, the western rivers in America became a floating supply chain that fueled national growth. Settler families repurposed the wood from their boats to build their first cabins in the wilderness; cargo boats were broken apart and sold to build the boomtowns along the water route. Joining the river traffic were floating brothels, called â??gun boatsâ?; â??smithy boatsâ? for blacksmiths; even â??whiskey boatsâ? with taverns mounted on jaunty rafts. In the present day, Americaâ??s inland rivers are a superhighway dominated by leviathan bargesâ??carrying $80 billion of cargo annuallyâ??all descended from flatboats like the ramshackle Patience, which must avoid being crushed alongside their metal hulls. As a historian, Buck resurrects the eraâ??s adventurous spirit, but he also challenges familiar myths about American expansion, confronting the bloody truth behind settlersâ?? push for land and wealth. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced more than 125,000 members of the Cherokee, Choctaw, and several other tribes to travel the Mississippi on a brutal journey en route to the barrens of Oklahoma. Simultaneously, almost a million enslaved African Americans were carried in flatboats and marched by foot 1,000 miles over the Appalachians to the cotton and cane fields of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, birthing the term â??sold down the river.â? Weaving together a tapestry of first-person histories, Buck portrays this watershed era of American expansion as it was really lived. With a rare narrative power that blends stirring adventure with absorbing untold history, Life on the Mississippi is a mus­cular and majestic feat of storytelling from a writer who may be the closest that we have today to Mark Twain. History, eBooks.com<

ISBN: 9781501106392

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * "Audacious…Life on the Mississippi sparkles." The Wall Street Journal * "A rich mix of history, reporting, and personal introspection." St. Louis Post-Dispatc… Altro …

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * "Audacious…Life on the Mississippi sparkles." The Wall Street Journal * "A rich mix of history, reporting, and personal introspection." St. Louis Post-Dispatch * "Both a travelogue and an engaging history lesson about America's westward expansion after the Revolutionary War." Christian Science Monitor The eagerly awaited return of master American storyteller Rinker Buck, Life on the Mississippi is an epic, enchanting blend of history and adventure in which Buck builds a wooden flatboat from the grand "flatboat era" of the 1800s and sails it down the Mississippi River, illuminating the forgotten past of America's first western frontier. Seven years ago, readers around the country fell in love with a singular American voice: Rinker Buck, whose infectious curiosity about history launched him across the West in a covered wagon pulled by mules and propelled his book about the trip, The Oregon Trail, to ten weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, Buck returns to chronicle his latest incredible adventure: building a wooden flatboat from the bygone era of the early 1800s and journeying down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. A modern-day Huck Finn, Buck casts off down the river on the flatboat Patience accompanied by an eccentric crew of daring shipmates. Over the course of his voyage, Buck steers his fragile wooden craft through narrow channels dominated by massive cargo barges, rescues his first mate gone overboard, sails blindly through fog, breaks his ribs not once but twice, and camps every night on sandbars, remote islands, and steep levees. As he charts his own journey, he also delivers a richly satisfying work of history that brings to life a lost era. The role of the flatboat in our country's evolution is far more significant than most Americans realize. Between 1800 and 1840, millions of farmers, merchants, and teenage adventurers embarked from states like Pennsylvania and Virginia on flatboats headed beyond the Appalachians to Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Like the Nile, the Thames, or the Seine before them, the western rivers in America became a floating supply chain that fueled national growth. Settler families repurposed the wood from their boats to build their first cabins in the wilderness; cargo boats were broken apart and sold to build the boomtowns along the water route. Joining the river traffic were floating brothels, called "gun boats"; "smithy boats" for blacksmiths; even "whiskey boats" with taverns mounted on jaunty rafts. In the present day, America's inland rivers are a superhighway dominated by leviathan bargescarrying $80 billion of cargo annuallyall descended from flatboats like the ramshackle Patience, which must avoid being crushed alongside their metal hulls. As a historian, Buck resurrects the era's adventurous spirit, but he also challenges familiar myths about American expansion, confronting the bloody truth behind settlers' push for land and wealth. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced more than 125,000 members of the Cherokee, Choctaw, and several other tribes to travel the Mississippi on a brutal journey en route to the barrens of Oklahoma. Simultaneously, almost a million enslaved African Americans were carried in flatboats and marched by foot 1,000 miles over the Appalachians to the cotton and cane fields of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, birthing the term "sold down the river." Weaving together a tapestry of first-person histories, Buck portrays this watershed era of American expansion as it was really lived. With a rare narrative power that blends stirring adventure with absorbing untold history, Life on the Mississippi is a muscular and majestic feat of storytelling from a writer who may be the closest that we have today to Mark Twain. E-Book, Simon + Schuster Inc.<

ISBN: 9781501106392

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * â??Audaciousâ?¦Life on the Mississippi sparkles.â? â??The Wall Street Journal * â??A rich mix of history, reporting, and personal introspection.â? â??St. Lou… Altro …

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * â??Audaciousâ?¦Life on the Mississippi sparkles.â? â??The Wall Street Journal * â??A rich mix of history, reporting, and personal introspection.â? â??St. Louis Post-Dispatch * â??Both a travelogue and an engaging history lesson about Americaâ??s westward expansion.â? â??The Christian Science Monitor The eagerly awaited return of master American storyteller Rinker Buck, Life on the Mississippi is an epic, enchanting blend of history and adventure in which Buck builds a wooden flatboat from the grand â??flatboat eraâ? of the 1800s and sails it down the Mississippi River, illuminating the forgotten past of Americaâ??s first western frontier. Seven years ago, readers around the country fell in love with a singular American voice: Rinker Buck, whose infectious curiosity about history launched him across the West in a covered wagon pulled by mules and propelled his book about the trip, The Oregon Trail, to ten weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, Buck returns to chronicle his latest incredible adventure: building a wooden flatboat from the bygone era of the early 1800s and journeying down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. A modern-day Huck Finn, Buck casts off down the river on the flatboat Patience accompanied by an eccentric crew of daring shipmates. Over the course of his voyage, Buck steers his fragile wooden craft through narrow channels dominated by massive cargo barges, rescues his first mate gone overboard, sails blindly through fog, breaks his ribs not once but twice, and camps every night on sandbars, remote islands, and steep levees. As he charts his own journey, he also delivers a richly satisfying work of history that brings to life a lost era. The role of the flatboat in our countryâ??s evolution is far more significant than most Americans realize. Between 1800 and 1840, millions of farmers, merchants, and teenage adventurers embarked from states like Pennsylvania and Virginia on flatboats headed beyond the Appalachians to Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Settler families repurposed the wood from their boats to build their first cabins in the wilderness; cargo boats were broken apart and sold to build the boomtowns along the water route. Joining the river traffic were floating brothels, called â??gun boatsâ?; â??smithy boatsâ? for blacksmiths; even â??whiskey boatsâ? for alcohol. In the present day, Americaâ??s inland rivers are a superhighway dominated by leviathan bargesâ??carrying $80 billion of cargo annuallyâ??all descended from flatboats like the ramshackle Patience. As a historian, Buck resurrects the eraâ??s adventurous spirit, but he also challenges familiar myths about American expansion, confronting the bloody truth behind settlersâ?? push for land and wealth. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced more than 125,000 members of the Cherokee, Choctaw, and several other tribes to travel the Mississippi on a brutal journey en route to the barrens of Oklahoma. Simultaneously, almost a million enslaved African Americans were carried in flatboats and marched by foot 1,000 miles over the Appalachians to the cotton and cane fields of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, birthing the term â??sold down the river.â? Buck portrays this watershed era of American expansion as it was really lived. With a rare narrative power that blends stirring adventure with absorbing untold history, Life on the Mississippi is a mus­cular and majestic feat of storytelling from a writer who may be the closest that we have today to Mark Twain. History, eBooks.com<

ISBN: 9781501106392

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * â??Audaciousâ?¦Life on the Mississippi sparkles.â? â??The Wall Street Journal * â??A rich mix of history, reporting, and personal introspection.â? â??St. Lou… Altro …

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * â??Audaciousâ?¦Life on the Mississippi sparkles.â? â??The Wall Street Journal * â??A rich mix of history, reporting, and personal introspection.â? â??St. Louis Post-Dispatch * â??Both a travelogue and an engaging history lesson about Americaâ??s westward expansion.â? â??The Christian Science Monitor The eagerly awaited return of master American storyteller Rinker Buck, Life on the Mississippi is an epic, enchanting blend of history and adventure in which Buck builds a wooden flatboat from the grand â??flatboat eraâ? of the 1800s and sails it down the Mississippi River, illuminating the forgotten past of Americaâ??s first western frontier. Seven years ago, readers around the country fell in love with a singular American voice: Rinker Buck, whose infectious curiosity about history launched him across the West in a covered wagon pulled by mules and propelled his book about the trip, The Oregon Trail, to ten weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, Buck returns to chronicle his latest incredible adventure: building a wooden flatboat from the bygone era of the early 1800s and journeying down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. A modern-day Huck Finn, Buck casts off down the river on the flatboat Patience accompanied by an eccentric crew of daring shipmates. Over the course of his voyage, Buck steers his fragile wooden craft through narrow channels dominated by massive cargo barges, rescues his first mate gone overboard, sails blindly through fog, breaks his ribs not once but twice, and camps every night on sandbars, remote islands, and steep levees. As he charts his own journey, he also delivers a richly satisfying work of history that brings to life a lost era. The role of the flatboat in our countryâ??s evolution is far more significant than most Americans realize. Between 1800 and 1840, millions of farmers, merchants, and teenage adventurers embarked from states like Pennsylvania and Virginia on flatboats headed beyond the Appalachians to Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Settler families repurposed the wood from their boats to build their first cabins in the wilderness; cargo boats were broken apart and sold to build the boomtowns along the water route. Joining the river traffic were floating brothels, called â??gun boatsâ?; â??smithy boatsâ? for blacksmiths; even â??whiskey boatsâ? for alcohol. In the present day, Americaâ??s inland rivers are a superhighway dominated by leviathan bargesâ??carrying $80 billion of cargo annuallyâ??all descended from flatboats like the ramshackle Patience. As a historian, Buck resurrects the eraâ??s adventurous spirit, but he also challenges familiar myths about American expansion, confronting the bloody truth behind settlersâ?? push for land and wealth. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced more than 125,000 members of the Cherokee, Choctaw, and several other tribes to travel the Mississippi on a brutal journey en route to the barrens of Oklahoma. Simultaneously, almost a million enslaved African Americans were carried in flatboats and marched by foot 1,000 miles over the Appalachians to the cotton and cane fields of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, birthing the term â??sold down the river.â? Buck portrays this watershed era of American expansion as it was really lived. With a rare narrative power that blends stirring adventure with absorbing untold history, Life on the Mississippi is a mus­cular and majestic feat of storytelling from a writer who may be the closest that we have today to Mark Twain. History, eBooks.com<

2022, ISBN: 9781501106392

An Epic American Adventure, eBooks, eBook Download (EPUB), [PU: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster], Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, 2022