Customer Reviews

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, Man of Two Worlds

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is thin gruel indeed. It is double spaced and large type presumably to make it thicker. Illustrations are of poor printed quality and too small. The author covers little if any new ground and is given to much conjecture with little documentation or footnoting. Particularly thin are the Mormon Batallion and California periods given the ample documentation that exists on these periods. I have read everything serious that is published on Baptiste, and this adds nothing to what is already out there. The fact is, little historical material exists on Baptiste, not even a photograph, although his contemporaries (like Beckwourth) were photographed. I waited longer than normal for the book and finished with it in one sitting disappointed. The most honest and best documented appraisal of Charbonneau's life is the 2001 Journal of Oregon History article, "Sacajawea's Son: by Albert Furtwangler reprinted in 2004 by Oregon Historical Society Press and the 1933 Anne W Hafen biography.

I read everything I can about Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, Tousaint and Sakagawea and the L&C expedition. This is the best book about Jean Baptiste I have read. There is not a lot of wild speculation to fill in the gaps of written record. The book is well written and believable for the most part. It follows the known parts of Baptite's life pretty accuately, to my knowledge. A very interesting read. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting a very near non-fiction account of Jean Baptiste's life. Being a Charbonneau decended from the same line of Olivier Charbonneau that Tousaint is, I find this book a "must read" for anyone interested in the "real" Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.

Chuck Charbonneau

This informative and pleasurable read about Charbonneau, the much loved baby "Pomp" on the Corps of Discovery, puts a face on the man that went on to become successful throughout the charted but yet un-tamed West, in his own right. I feel as though I know so much more about this person due to Mr. Ritter's excellent research. Above all, as a novice history devotee, I appreciate the flow of the writing as it almost anticipates what your next question may have been about Charbonneau. The heavy handed, over-satiated blanket of scholarly approach would contrast greatly with the pure simplicity of this character, as he is portrayed.

I'm giving it five stars partly because I thought a couple of the other reviewers were unfair. Not everybody wants the super in-depth study of a subject. I liked the book precisely because it skips the minutia and focuses on the most interesting elements of the story. I also appreciated the author's effort to engage the reader in reasonable supposition about Baptiste's undocumented activities. More on Charbonneau's time in Germany would have been useful, but otherwise I thought this was a stimulating and entertaining read.

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau was a man before his time, he was a model of diversity, for which the modern world now craves. He was equally at home with many of the western European languages and people as he was with the English-speaking western United States. He lived a life that many only dream about, from a sophisticated upper class life to the hard, back breaking life of an adventurer who lived off the land.

I was chagrined to learn that "Pomp" had left no written records of his own. These would have most surely been a real historical treasure. We can only guess at what he might have wrote. Mike Ritter's offerings as to the thoughts of Jean Baptiste seem as real and plausible as any could be. The book is a wonderful account of the life of a largely ignored member of the Discovery Corp.

Overall, the author has done a superb job of researching the life of this larger-than-life historical figure, and has brought us a wonderful account of his exploits and adventures.

A thoroughyly enjoyable and authentic record of a part of our American history. A young man's mark on a part of our history that makes this record a deeply memorable one. History books haven't begun to tell the in-depth, detailed truth about what really happened. Don't miss it!

I was, at first, excited to see a "new" biography of Charbonneau. However, this is mostly a rehash of available information. I found too many errors in this book to sustain any excitement. Wrong dates and quotations without sources are only a few of the problems. I'll wait for the new book being publised by Arthur Clark and keep my fingers crossed.