William Clark's world : describing America in an age of unknowns

William Clark, co-captain of the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition, devoted his adult life to describing the American West. But this task raised a daunting challenge: how best to bring an unknown continent to life for the young republic? Through Clark's life and career, this book explores how the West entered the American imagination. While he never called himself a writer or an artist, Clark nonetheless drew maps, produced books, drafted reports, surveyed landscapes, and wrote journals that made sense of the West for a new nation fascinated by the region’s potential but also fearful of its dangers. __William Clark’s World__ presents a new take on the manifest destiny narrative and on the way the West took shape in the national imagination in the early nineteenth century. William Clark, co-captain of the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition, devoted his adult life to describing the American West. But this task raised a daunting challenge: how best to bring an unknown continent to life for the young republic? Through Clark’s life and career, this book explores how the West entered the American imagination. While he never called himself a writer or an artist, Clark nonetheless drew maps, produced books, drafted reports, surveyed landscapes, and wrote journals that made sense of the West for a new nation fascinated by the region’s potential but also fearful of its dangers. William Clark’s World presents a new take on the manifest destiny narrative and on the way the West took shape in the national imagination in the early nineteenth century. "By examining the life and career of William Clark, this book explores how the North American West entered the American imagination. Clark was among the most important western officials of his generation, and he worked to represent the West during a period of tremendous uncertainty and change. Without ever calling himself a writer or an artist, Clark nonetheless drew maps, helped to produce books, drafted lengthy reports, surveyed the landscape, and wrote numerous journals that made sense of the West and its future for Americans who were fascinated by the region's potential but also fearful of its dangers. William Clark's World situates the descriptive words and pictures created by Clark and his contemporaries at the center of a discussion of western history and cultural development."--Jacket. Contents 7 A Note on Terms 9 Introduction 11 Prologue 23 Part I. A World Encountered 37 1. A Western Future 37 2. Three Treaties, One Nation 69 3. Expansion 85 Part II. A World Explored 111 4. Explorers 111 5. Careers 136 Books 170 Part III. A World Transformed 203 7. Return to the West 203 8. Moving The Far West 226 Conclusion: A Western History 261 Notes 275 Bibliography 317 Acknowledgments 344 Index 349