Customer Reviews

American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett

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I liked this book. Despite the presence of numerous footnotes and a bibliography, it is a "popular" text rather than a "scholarly" one. I found it a quick and compelling read, but then I've been a Crockett fan since I was 11 back in 1955 (or was I a Fess Parker fan? No, it was Crockett, as it turns out.) I had not read any full-length bios of the man, although the recent book "Three Roads to the Alamo" deals extensively with Crockett, Jim Bowie and William B. Travis. I enjoyed Billy Bob Thornton's performance as Davy in the recent big-budget Alamo movie, and in fact, was one of the few who liked the film as a whole. If you saw that movie, you'll see a lot of Thornton in this book's depiction of Crockett. Davy comes off as a pretty decent man, consistently trying to live his principles in a tough life situation. Certainly, he seems more admirable overall than Bowie or Travis, although I was suprised to learn that Davy was even a slave-owner briefly, and sold one of the three slaves inherited by his second wife in order to pay his debts. Bowie, of course, was an active slave-trader, and Travis even brought his personal slave to the Alamo. But Crockett was brave throughout his life, broke throughout his life, uneducated but talented, likeable and outgoing, a political failure and yet a celebrity. He did not intend, upon traveling to Texas in late 1834, to end up dead at the Alamo. Once there, he had a couple of weeks during which he could have left. By choosing to remain, he became an enduring symbol of courage. If that kind of life appeals to you, spend a week or so reading "American Legend." You'll be glad you did.

For us boomers raised on the remarkable 1950s Disney production, AMERICAN LEGEND substantiates much of the Davy Crocket TV shows, but also augments it with insight into how much more complex a person the frontier legend was regardless of Buddy Ebson's summarizing ballad. Buddy Levy fills much of the gaps including mildly negative commentary. For instance, there is insight into Crockett's two wives, five children and four step-children in which the hero's itchy feet kept him on the road a lot; both his strong spouses took care of the home front with iron wills, but the hero was not home that often (regardless of offspring count). Interesting to this reviewer's memory of the Disney show has Mr. Crocket going to Washington as a success story, but the biographer paints a more balanced picture of a somewhat failed politician. However, the most interesting new items (at least to me) is Crockett wrote a bestselling autobiography in which he barnstormed the country selling it and his dispute with his former Commander in the Creek War President Jackson over the abusive Indian Removal Act of 1830. This is an intriguing look at an individual who in the first half of the nineteenth century was a living legend that authenticates how accurate the Disney portrayal was; one worth reading and the other worth watching

Harriet Klausner

Once you read this, you'll understand that Davy Crockett was not a man of much accomplishment. Like celebrities of today, he was famous for being famous. In fact, he was probably America's first media star.

It's amazing that there were so many bears in TN, maybe he killed them all. While he made his name as a hunter and woodsman, he tried a number of schemes, but was not a successful entrepreneur. He left his wife with children (his and theirs), drudge work and ever present debt while he turned his charm and his gregarious nature into a political career.

He was a one issue populist when he was elected to Congress, but couldn't get much movement on that issue. His fellow Tennesseean was President. Andrew Jackson, trying to build a following among the common men, should have been a supporter of squatters' rights to homestead (if this is an accurate summary of the concept). Crockett knew Jackson from the Indian Wars, and did not have much respect (but Crockett's war record is dubious... not to say Jackson's isn't either) for him. Levy touches on the rancour between these two men, but not much on their political differences. He does recount how Crockett is indulged by Biddle, Jackson's archenemy.

In the end Crockett, with a rifle, a gift of his rich friends, that he names for his wife, goes off to TX. He's a friend of Sam Houston who has inspired him about opportunities in what will surely be a US state. They both exhibit what we, today, might call alcoholic behavior. We know the end of this story.

I picked up this book, hoping to learn more about the Jackson era and I did, but not in the way I expected. There was almost nothing about the big issues of the day: Jackson's war on the bank/Biddle and slavery/abolishionism. This book, though, gives you a flavor for the frontier, and the emergence of an individual... who would never achieve acclaim in French salons or pre-Victorian (or pre-Beatles for that matter) England. Ben Franklin another early American autobiographer and celebrity, had a uniquely American persona that still could dazzle European courts. Europeans could understand Franklin.

But, Davy Crockett was too new... too flawed... too outrageously common... too proud of hunting to feed his family (& not for sport)... too accepting of his station (but willing to take risks to better his financial condition)... too unaware of/unconcered about dukes and earls... to be understood anywhere else in his time but in the fledging nation. He is and was truly an American original.

One of the best, most readable books on Crockett! Very well done, informative, accurate, interesting....detailed. You will love it if you are interested in Crockett! For true Crockett fans also get Groneman's book David Crockett Hero of the Common Man, which is more up to date on the death of Crockett at the Alamo. Levy's book is highly detailed on the early life of Crockett, but a tad dated on the current thinking on the events of the Alamo.

This book is incredible. It hashes out the truth from the legend flawlessly, seamlessly. This is the perfect historical novel!

There are a number of great frontier figures who have excited the imagination over time--Kit Carson, Daniel Boone--and Davy Crockett. This book does a strong job of laying out Crockett's life, his accomplishments, his shortcomings, why he became (dare I use the term?) an iconic American figure.

His life began in 1786, in Tennessee. This was on the frontier, with the ever present threat of Indian attacks. Davy's family was not well off, and Davy had to hire out when he was only 12 years old to help support the family. He experienced a number of adventures with his many employments while he was still young. Early on, his life in servitude and at home was such that he just ran away from ho9me for awhile. The author wonders if this might not have been the genesis of his motto: "Be always sure you're right--then go ahead!" (Page 17 and elsewhere). He returned home when he was sixteen and worked to help his family. Before he was 20, he married Polly and began his own life.

The War of 1812 afforded him the opportunity to fight for his country, with General Andrew Jackson. After the war, he continued his wandering, always exploring, looking for new land. He displayed his hunting abilities far and wide and gained a reputation for it. He was always on the edge of debt--often falling in to debt. He had an entrepreneurial spirit, but--somehow--his projects never seemed to work out.

After Polly's death, he remarried and continued in a like vein. He began a political life--in the state legislature and then in the United States Congress. The book does a good job showing his dedication to his values--but his complete inability to work with others to forge compromises and move ahead. Some might give him high marks for not compromising. The end result, though, was ineffectiveness and the end of his political career.

With his family life falling apart because of his excessive absences and his inability to be a good provider, his life changed. When his acquaintance Sam Houston suggested he go to Texas to start over, Crockett found the idea irresistible. And we all know what happened from there. . .

What is good about this book is that it doesn't hide Crockett's blemishes (he seemed pretty self-centered, unable to work well with others when he was in disagreement, and seems to have had at least a flavor of ADHD, in that he seemed always to be moving around, never able to stand still). But he also made a genuine mark in American history. One of the most telling stories in the book is when he was invited to attend the opening of a play about himself. At the start, the actor and the myth and the fiction met the real person, in a strange duet. Levy says (Page 4): ". . .as Davy bows to the audience and takes his seat, he must understand that his present situation is unique--for the man, alive and in the flesh, has just met his own myth."

All in all, a useful biography of Davy Crockett.

If you want to read about a congressman who left office no richer
than he entered it, this is it. This shows the kind of people that
made this country the greatest one on earth one individual at a time.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Buddy Levy's style of writing, as my wife would say, doesn't interfere with the story. It's a page turner. His other book about Cortez the Conquistador is even better. I wish there were more writers who wrote about historical events for the casual reader and made them entertaining not tiring.

I think the subject would have like the way the author writes this book. It shows David as a real person rather than the John Wayne characters in those movies. He was a real person and did not care what the folks in D.C. thought of him. His stand for the American Indians cost him his seat in Congress. This rest is History.

This man's life is pure American folklore, the kind of remarkable life that in European countries survived through Medieval times all through modern times, first in the memories of country thanks to mouth-to-mouth story-telling, until some -usually- Christian monk decided to put the story on paper, adding myth to legend. Davy Crockett's life was one of this kind, only transplanted to the U.S., but genuine it was, because the popular masses loved him and made of him an alter ego of themselves. America became Davy Crockett, and this book explains why. Fluid, in plain and vivid language. Pure Crockett-style.