Frank McLynn
Columbus of the Woods
Frontiersman: Daniel Boone and the Making of America
By Meredith Mason Brown
Louisiana State University Press 375pp £26
When Daniel Boone died in 1820, just a few days short of his eighty-sixth birthday, he was already the most famous American on the frontier and would maintain that position, even when challenged later by the likes of Davy Crockett and Kit Carson. His career was coextensive with the birth of the United States and its rise to a position of power among the nations. Multiple legends have accumulated around him like barnacles on the hull of a schooner, and Meredith Brown makes it part of his task to do a spot of ‘careening’, scraping away the myth and allowing us to see the historical figure.
Even in terms of sober historical achievement Boone’s feats were impressive. On foot, horseback or canoe he travelled the eastern seaboard from Maryland to Florida, thoroughly explored North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee, and made forays into Ohio, Michigan, across the Mississippi and up the Missouri. He was effectively
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
When @djbduncan notices the text for a literary jigsaw puzzle had been written by a former colleague, his head spins. A wild surmise. Are jigsaws REF-able?
Dennis Duncan - The W Factor
Dennis Duncan: The W Factor
literaryreview.co.uk
In an effort to scold drinkers, Victorian temperance societies furiously marked every drinking establishment with a red X on city maps. It was a spectacular case of propaganda backfiring.
@foxtosser explores the history of drink maps
Edward Brooke-Hitching - From Beer Street to Gin Lane
Edward Brooke-Hitching: From Beer Street to Gin Lane - Drink Maps in Victorian Britain by Kris Butler
literaryreview.co.uk
How did a workers’ insurance agent who died of tuberculosis at the age of forty become a global literary icon?
@MortenHoiJensen on Kafka's metamorphosis
Morten Høi Jensen - Paranoid Humanoid
Morten Høi Jensen: Paranoid Humanoid - Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka by Karolina Watroba; Kafka: Making o...
literaryreview.co.uk