The Course of Empire

📖 The Scoop

A history of three centuries in which a new race engulfed a continent.

For twenty years or more, whenever he was able, Bernard DeVoto has been visiting and revisiting the pioneer trails, the Missouri River in particular. He has studied its volume and seasonal flow, its weather and geological history, and has traced its bends on the minutely detailed sectional maps of the United States Geological Survey and the Army Engineers.

He has flow its length from St. Louis to its source in Montana. He has traveled great stretches of its deep waters by large boat and probed its shallows by steel dugout.

Throughout these adventures he pondered the riddle of the firstcomers to this continent—the ideas and misconceptions, the illusions and beliefs which led the early explorers ever westward to new disappointment.

At last Mr. DeVoto concluded that the Missouri was the answer to that riddle and the main character of this book. It was the elusive key to the storehouse of the West. It was The Northwest Passage. The passage to India. The Way West—indeed, it was The Course of Empire.

This is the first edition, originally published in 1952, richly illustrated throughout with maps by Hungarian-born cartographer Erwin Raisz.

Genre: History / Wars & Conflicts / General (fancy, right?)