Customer Reviews

Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer (An Owl Book)

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Here is your chance to read a very fair assessment on the life of Daniel Boone. Dr. Faragher does a wonderful job in debunking the myths while still preserving the relevance of Boone's life.

Boone's life was remarkable in its contrast to today's society. It was not unusual for Boone to go on a long hunt and not see his family for 3 months. Living on the frontier created chalenges taht would be unimaginable to todays "Civilization". Boone, for example, had his share struggles with local Indian Tribes, but Faragher refutes the myth that Boone was an Indian hater/killer. He was simply a man who tried to live a life on the frontier.

In general, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Boone or the pioneers of the frontier. Be warned, however, this is an academic approach to Boone's life. Some readers may be turned off by Faragher balanced look at Boone's life that seperates fact from myth. If you are looking for tall tales about the Boone legend you may want to keep on searching.

Although a member of the Revolutionary generation, Daniel Boone was not really a figure in the Revolution. Spending most of his life in the frontier, the war had only an indirect effect on him. Boone's contributions to history were to lie elsewhere.

Faragher writes a good - sometimes exciting, sometimes slow - chronicle of a life that is almost as much myth as fact. Boone is depicted as a generally even-tempered and intelligent (though not well-educated) man who acted as a leader in the colonization of Kentucky. His true significance is more based on myth, however, as he became the subject of a contemporary biography aimed at encouraging people to move to Kentucky.

In this fashion, Boone becomes a semi-legendary figure, alongside other Americans such as Davy Crockett and Kit Carson, for whom the fiction is more important than the fact. Faragher does show that the real Boone was a relatively admirable person, though not without his faults.

One final thing I enjoyed about this biography is that Faragher includes a final chapter that acts as an epilogue and shows Boone's impact after his death. I like these sorts of epilogues and find them too rare in biographies. For a different look at U.S. history, this book is a good way to go.

Restoring Boone to his times, Faragher dutifully dethrones the legend and shows us a man full of contradictions, a man that is ambivalent, and a man who epitomizes the American pioneer.

Faragher shows us a complex man who has been born into a struggling society. Eighteenth Century America was laden with hypocrisies: divorce was grounds for excommunication from church and community, while adultery was viewed as fashionable; the United States struggled to identify itself as a democratic nation, while the federalists aimed to centralize a strong government; and, I would be remiss to mention the human beings in the nation proclaiming freedom who were enslaved. Boone, too, was tumultuous in trying to find himself.

The friend of the native Americans displaced tribes by leading settlers onto sacred hunting grounds. The patriarch of a family of 12 spent months on end practicing "long hunts." The loving husband even forgave his wife when he discovered that he had been cuckolded, and she carried another man's child. The independent recluse couldn't even stay out of the tightly controlled military, and rose to the rank of colonel.

Faragher does an outstanding job separating myths from facts, all the while displaying Daniel Boone in a way we may more fully enjoy, which is up close, personal, and, most importantly, fallible. Like an archeologist, Faragher brushes away the debris from the relic. And, like an artist, he paints a picture we can not only appreciate, but a picture with which we can identify and to which we can relate.

Don't have the time for an indepth critique. If you are interested in Boone, this book should be right up your alley. I was in a American history class and my peers often choose not to read the assigned matirial. I could tell they not only read this book, but enjoyed it.

John Mack Faragher believes that he was an American so steeped in legend and myth that while his name is known to all he is completely misunderstood. Faragher seeks to draw a portrait of Boone the man, minus the legend and myth, and his work is a wonderful reassessment of this iconic American hero. What we learn is that Boone was fine frontiersman who enjoyed the forests and the natural environment of Kentucky. He had a genuine affinity with the Shawnee Indians, with whom he had much in common but fought repeatedly and eventually helped to vanquish from the region. Boone was at his best when he was able to demonstrate a natural courage in the face of adversity, whether it be in fighting the Shawnee or in confronting other enemies. He had ambitions as a land speculator and entrepreneur but never made it work. He made and lost several fortunes in his lifetime.

The Daniel Boone of this biography is neither the intrepid loner of legend nor the larger than life frontiersman. He was essentially a family man who tried to ensure his place in the economy of Revolutionary America, going to the frontier to do so, and securing an inheritance for his children. Even-tempered and intelligent, if not well-educated, Boone was a man out for the "main chance." In dangerous times he rose to the occasion, as in the siege of Boonesborough in 1778, his captivity by the Shawnee for several months, and the rescue of his daughter Jemima and Betsy and Fanny Calloway from Indians when they were abducted.

Faragher does a fine job in separating the fact from the fiction of Boone's life, and this is an elegant and entertaining as well as illuminating book. If you have any interest whatsoever in the life of Daniel Boone this is the book to start with in learning about his remarkable life on the American frontier.

I enjoy reading biographies, and have read several very enjoyable books. This is one of my favorite biographies.

I enjoyed the way the author has clarified truth from probable fiction. He adds several stories that are likely not true, but prefaces them as such. Even the stories that are true are almost beyond imagination.

Daniel Boone was a man that looked on life as an adventure, and never saw quitting as a possibility, even though he had some very difficult things happen to him and his family. There is a lesson for us all to be learned in Boone's resilency.

I enjoyed learning about life in Boone's time. I am amazed at what both the men and women did to survive. The daily routine of Boone's wife would be enough to make most modern folks long for an extended vacation after one day.

The book is well written, easy to read, and very compelling. I highly recommend it.

This book not only gives an accurate history Daniel Boone, but shows what life was like for the first pioneers who were courageous enough to venture past the Applacian Mountains. Daniel Boone's true history is so exciting and interesting that the myths about him are unnecessary. This book does a good job of portraying his real history and debunking the myths. I highly recommend this book for those interested in what was going on in the western frontiers of the colonies while they were at war for independence from England.

Well written and detailed book on America's back woodsman who seemed a precursor to the Mountain Man. Hailing from Pennsylvania, the author tracks Boone's introduction and love of hunting from his early years through his family's move to North carolina to Kentucky finishing his mature years in Missouri due to his constant thirst for better hunting and less people. Fascinating account of Boone's unique relationship with the Indians and cool head. His ability to sustain himself like a native and stay in the wilds alone or with small bands. The author not only does well detailing how Boone led parties into Kentucky and creating settlements but also verifies several exploits such as his saving the lives of his daughter and her friend who were kidnapped by Indians by using his knowledge of the geography of the land and the trails that the Indians used.

The author also details well Boone's controversial surrendering of his men to the Indians in exchange for sparing families at Boonesboro that is still somewhat puzzling as many thought him a traitor. Also a bit of a paradox is Boone's love of the hunt, staying away from home sometimes for a year or more while fathering 8 to 10 kids with Rebecca. Also interesting is his relationship with Rebecca who endured his long hunts and disappearances and may have had a child not Boone's that he accepted as the the consequences of his absence. Well worth reading, even covers Boone's warts particularly as a land surveyor, that obviously was not his skill. And unlike Fess Parker and the legend, he never wore a cookskin cap. But the author makes the facts as fascinating as the legend as Boone was in fact a fearless and independent man of the wilderness.

Although a member of the Revolutionary generation, Daniel Boone was at most an indirect participant in that historical event. Instead, Boone gets his fame from his contributions to the founding of Kentucky.

Faragher shows that Boone's contributions were less extensive than the myth of Boone would indicate. Nonetheless, Boone did provide important leadership during the early days of Kentucky's colonizations. Although a sympathetic biography of Boone, Faragher treats with great respect the Indians who Boone had numerous conflicts with.

Boone himself is portrayed as even-tempered and intelligent (though not well-educated), a man elevated to a legendary status by a contemporary biographer who was interested in Kentucky land speculation. Faragher's biography, sometimes exciting and sometimes slow, does a good job at separating myth from fact.

Since most biographies of figures of this era focus on people who were in the more developed areas of the colonies/states such as Philadelphia, Boston and New York, this biography is good at showing what life was like on the 18th century frontier. ...

The is a must read for anyone who likes American History and the men who lived that history. Daniel Boone lived a life of an American icon in his time but he loved the idea of exploration to be alone with nature. He lived a month shy of his Eighty-Sixth birthday but was in the heart of America.

Daniel Boone's exploites are well known, but a good biography about Boone was hard to find until John Mack Faragher wrote this book. We live life as Boone lived through this book, a well documented work with flowing prose, letters and accounts of Boone's life.

I enjoyed reading about an original American Pioneer.

Excellent read and not hype.