(Larger Image)
|
Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer (An Owl Book)
by John Mack Faragher
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (1993-11-15)
ISBN: 0805030077
EAN: 9780805030075
Dewy Decimal #: 976.902092
Paperback: 448 pages
SKU: 08040061
Condition: Like New As issued n
Comments: Paperback. Like new condition with owners plate on flyleaf, no markings and no creases to spine or cover. Very slight wear to cover. Near fine copy.
|
Editorial Reviews
|
Product Description
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History for 1993
In the first and most reliable biography of Daniel Boone in more than fifty years, award-winning historian Faragher brilliantly portrays America’s famous frontier hero. Drawing from popular narrative, the public record, scraps of documentation from Boone’s own hand, and a treasure of reminiscence gathered by nineteenth-century antiquarians, Faragher uses the methods of new social history to create a portrait of the man and the times he helped shape. Blending themes from a much vitalized Western and frontier history with the words and ideas of ordinary people, Faragher has produced a book that will stand as the definitive life of Daniel Boone for decades to come, and one that illuminates the frontier world of Boone like no other.
|
Amazon.com Review
The legend of the American frontier is largely the legend of a single individual, Daniel Boone, who looms over our folklore like a giant. Boone figures in other traditions as well: Goethe held him up as the model of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "natural man," and Lord Byron devoted several stanzas of his epic poem Don Juan to the frontiersman, calling Boone "happiest of mortals any where." But folklore is not history, and we are fortunate to have a reliable and factual life of Boone through the considerable efforts of John Mack Faragher. The contradictory admirer of Indians who participated in their destruction, the slaveholder who cherished liberty, the devoted family man who prized solitude and would disappear into the woods for years at a time--the real Boone is far more interesting than the mythical image, and in this book we finally catch sight of him.
|
Customer Reviews
|
Bringing the legend to life
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-12-14
For even the most curious amateur historians, the 1700's are atime few know about, except for the American Revolution. Ask any history student to name someone from that time period, who was not a Patriot, and probably the only name to come up with would be Daniel Boone.
Daniel Boone has stood the test of time as a historical figure as a pioneer. In reading this book, his most remarkable accomplishment was mere survival. In fact, learning of his life is an intertwining fascination with the time period of the mid and late 1700's, and what a difficult time it was for the anglo in America.
Battling the elements, the native Americans, and disease made mortality commonplace. Boone lost several children, and siblings, and few lived to succumb to old age.
Daniel boone did have several remarkable adventures. Being captured by the Shawnees, and having to live among them for months at a time, even being adopted as a son by their chief, was one. His remarkable calm in the face of several battles were examples of others.
He seemed to be anti-social, having moved to Kentucky from Missouri because his nearest neighbor was "only" twenty miles away. Yet he was somewhat of an enigma, as well. He loved his wife and family deeply, and retained deep friendships throughout his life.
His personality was devoid of pettiness, and full of acceptance. when he learned of his wife's infidelity, and resulting pregnancy, he accepted the child and took his wife back into his graces as if nothing untoward had happened.
This book is well researched and well thought out. It can be dry, at times, but is informative, and brings down the barriers of legend versus fact, and paints a clearer picture of the myth and the legend.
|
|
Reputable bio of an American icon
Rating (4)
Date: 2008-11-25
What do most of us know about Daniel Boone? Boonesborough? Cumberland Gap? Maybe even the Wilderness Road? Then there are the trumped up tales for which the most part, are fictitious.
Dr. Faragher does justice to this American frontiersman. He digs, rummages and investigates into the volumes written about Boone and turns this into a respectable, readable biography.
Settling Kentucky was a decade's long gruesome endeavor. Many lives were lost. The English, French, Indians and soon to be Americans engaged in numerous grisly battles to claim this region. Boone was involved in many of these bloody clashes and maintained till his closing days that he only killed three Indians in his life.
Even after being held prisoner for four months by the Shawnees, the man respected the Native Americans more so than the land hungry speculators who came in shortly after he opened these same territories.
He was a man of the woods, always living on the edge of society. A restless individual, who as the years went by, despised many components of civilization due to the ramifications thereof.
Insightful.
|
|
Daniel Boone
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-08-19
Daniel Boone lived from 1734 to 1820.
I knew almost nothing about Boone before reading this biography, and so cannot critique the book on its historical or biographical accuracy. My only complaint is that it is not longer. This seems an excellent book to begin a study of Daniel Boone. It has gotten me curious to read more.
And yes, I am one of those who grew up watching Fess Parker's TV show Daniel Boone.
|
|
Thoughtful, well written, balanced look at Boone
Rating (4)
Date: 2008-05-03
The style of this work reminded somewhat of McCullough's (writer of a biography of John Adams)in that the writer seeks to understand Boone's motivations within the context of the times he lived in. Unlike Adams however much less in definitely known about Boone and the writer is forced to include many stories and legends that are needed to embelish the biography but also pose the risk of pulling Boone's image and reputation in undesirable or unfair directions. The problem of course is that there are hundreds of legends and hundreds of variations on those legends and the writer must pick and chose how much weight to give the views of his different sources. Overall he has done a good job and the reader is treated to a realistic view of life in Kentucky when buffaloes roamed, the plight of the Indians etc... Recommended
|
|
Daniel Boone, The Real Man
Rating  (3)
Date: 2008-04-23
Daniel Boone was a long hunter and it brought him to the hunting ground of Kentucky. He hunted the land several times before he brought his family to Boonesborough a fort on the Kentucky River. Faragher shows that Boone was a man of character. He loved the frontier and wanted to be a part of it. Boone wanted to live in peace with the Indians but at times he found them to be his enemy. The people he encouraged to come west began to crowd him and he began to look for a new frontier farther west. The Author was very factual about the man, Daniel Boone. By Ruth Thompson author of "The Bluegrass Dream" and "Natchez Above The River"
|
|
|