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65 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reality separated from the Myth, September 28, 2007
This review is from: Boone: A Biography (Hardcover)
"Forget the coonskin cap; he never wore one." So starts this groundbreaking study of the life of one of America's best-known and least-understood heroes, Daniel Boone. Author Robert Morgan, a novelist by trade (Brave Enemies and Gap Creek) spent considerable time researching Boone's life, the result being a detailed biography that is well worth the reader's time.
Boone was born in rural Pennsylvania, moved to the Carolinas with his family as a boy, and then explored westwards from there. He wasn't the first person into Kentucky, as the author makes clear, but he wasn't far behind, and he established a good reputation for himself as a man who could find a way through the hills to good land, and would be honest with pioneers who were looking for a place to settle. He spent most of the American Revolution in Kentucky, participated only briefly in the fighting (in Virginia) and mainly was involved in conflicts in Kentucky with Indians, whether they were inspired by the British or were more opportunistic.
Morgan emphasizes Boone's naturalist instincts, and contrasts his expressed opinions with his actions--he and his cohorts often "hunted out" a region, then moved elsewhere once the game was depleted--and makes it clear that he was a contradiction, a man who understood the Indians but didn't care to live with them, who enjoyed the wilderness and wildlife but did a great deal to destroy or transform both. Legend has it that he would guide people to an area, and when enough had settled there, he would tell his wife they had to move further west to escape the press of civilization.
This is a well-written, intelligent biography, and I enjoyed it a great deal. I would recommend it to anyone interested in early American history, exploring, or the wilderness.
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35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful treatment of a great subject, October 15, 2007
This review is from: Boone: A Biography (Hardcover)
At 538 pages Boone: A Biography is a terrific read. Robert Morgan, better known for his insightful and sensitive novels proves that he can turn his masterful storytelling ability to the nonfiction realm as well.
Boone: A Biography isn't easy to put down. If I called Boone a page turner it would be as much a statement about the life of the subject as it would be about Robert Morgans writing ability. Lets face it, Daniel Boone lived a life full of risk taking. He pushed the boundaries of the civilized world back and in doing so lived on the edge.
Born with a wondering spirit, Daniel showed his love of the woods around his Pennsylvania home at a very early age. Disappearing for long stretches at a time he explored, observed, and learned the ways of nature. He learned the ways of wild things, a gift that would later save his life many times.
One of the things a good biography does is tell the back story....the times the main character lived in. Morgan does a terrific job in letting us see Daniel Boone and the culture he came from. It was a rough time. The people on the frontier were beat up by life in general. Only the strong survived; the weak didn't make it. Cruel yes, but the country was better off for this reality. When James, Boone's son was tortured and killed by Indians, Daniel accepted the loss and then moved on. We of the twentyfirst century have a hard time dealing with that type of stoicism.
Wonderfully written, well researched, filled with copius notes, Boone: A Biography should be a sure read on your short list. Robert Morgan also includes wonderful pieces of trivia/folk lore. For example, where the term "buck" for a dollar came from.
Peace
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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Huge Life, a Huge Myth, November 8, 2007
This review is from: Boone: A Biography (Hardcover)
Because he lived during the time before and after the American Revolution, the life of Daniel Boone encompasses one of the most important of historical periods. The story of Boone is the story of America, argues Robert Morgan, who is usually a poet and novelist, but has written a stirring biography of the frontiersman, _Boone: A Biography_ (Algonquin Books). There have been plenty of other biographies, starting while Boone was still alive, and all of them have either mythologized the subject or have had to attempt to clear the myths away from fact. The latter is not an easy task; for someone who was enormously famous and influential during his lifetime, there are surprising voids that we can know little about, apart from all the exaggerations and stories that have clung to the pioneer. Morgan has tried to make a chronological story, and it is a good one indeed, but it is not clouded by any undue admiration on the part of the author. Boone was a outdoors hero, but he was distinctly flawed when it came to the responsibilities of business dealings or legal documentation which he could not avoid. In fact, admired as he was during the time, Boone was during his life "accused of treason, fraud, and hypocrisy and was once court-martialed... He was blamed for dishonest and incompetent land surveying, and sued again and again for debt." Morgan shows eventually that Boone was not dishonest or incompetent, but merely careless. He only wanted to get more "elbow room" and get into the woods where he was supremely careful and capable, but one of the great paradoxes of his life was that he was drawn to people and they to him.
The demythologizing starts with the very first sentence of the book: "Forget the coonskin cap; he never wore one. Daniel Boone thought coonskin caps uncouth, heavy, and uncomfortable." Boone also would have been dismayed with his reputation as an Indian fighter. He admired the outdoor skills of the Indians, and he frankly sought friendly relationships with the Indians, an astonishing magnanimity since they repeatedly robbed him and killed members of his family. Boone's great problem was that though he loved being one against the wilderness (he often went out on long hunts by himself), he was a social being. Not only did his large family follow him in his westward advance through North Carolina, Kentucky, and Missouri, but so did other settlers, some deliberately following him and some just taking part in the general move west. He had enough of an ecological awareness to realize that the forces that drove the Indians away also drove away the deer, mink, beavers, and otter upon which he made his living as a woodsman, necessitating the next push westward. He also came to be aware at the end of his life that his way of living on the wilderness caused the very destruction of the wilderness he loved. On a more prosaic level, Boone had to take up shopkeeping or trade, and he became a surveyor. He was as good a surveyor as most surveyors around him, but the challenges of laying out tracts of land for sale within the wilderness called for more exact tools, and more exact documentation, than he was able to put to use. The unpleasantness of lawsuits over his surveys was bitter, and he had constant bad luck in taking political sides with those who claimed property in which he was to have a share but whose claims turned out to be invalid.
Remembering Boone for his life as a businessman would simply be silly; remembering that he was a genius in the woods, and a loving and fondly-remembered family man, but unlucky and unskillful in his financial affairs, makes Morgan's account well-rounded and believable. The legends, though, have to be confronted, and Morgan takes them from the first published stories about Boone's life all the way up to the influence of that life on Cooper, Whitman, and Thoreau. Boone's place in literature took off when schoolteacher John Filson came west to write about Kentucky and make his fortune from the book and from more settlers coming to the region. In 1784 he published _The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of Kentucke_, and included a chapter "The Adventures of Col. Daniel Boon." Boone had cooperated with the book, and the chapter is in his voice. He comes across as a well-read, resilient model of a republican citizen, just the image his fellow citizens liked at the time. Boone also had an endearing dry humor and modesty that people loved. He really did say, when asked if he were ever lost in the wilderness, "No, I can't say I was ever lost, but I was _bewildered_ once for three days." Confronted with a tall tale of his hunting capability, he exclaimed, "I would not believe that tale if I told it myself." The figure of the hero, Morgan remembers, "is mostly a name to which the deeds and exploits, qualities of character, can be attached." The tales as best they can be confirmed are in this beautifully written account of a life that was important for itself as well as for the legends that grew from it.
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