A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America (Lewis & Clark Expedition) [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Jon Kukla (Author)

Book Description

Series: Lewis & Clark Expedition | Publication Date: April 8, 2003

The remarkable story of the land purchase that doubled the size of our young nation, set the stage for its expansion across the continent, and confronted Americans with new challenges of ethnic and religious diversity. In a saga that stretches from Paris and Madrid to Haiti, Virginia, New York, and New Orleans, Jon Kukla shows how rivalries over the Mississippi River and its vast watershed brought France, Spain, Great Britain, and the United States to the brink of war and shaped the destiny of the new American republic. We encounter American leaders--Jefferson and Jay, Monroe and Pickering among them--clashing over the opening of the West and its implications for sectional balance of power. We see these disagreements nearly derailing the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and spawning a series of separatist conspiracies long before the dispute over slavery in the territory set the stage for the Missouri Compromise and the Civil War.

Kukla makes it clear that as the French Revolution and Napoleon’s empire-building rocked the Atlantic community, Spain’s New World empire grew increasingly vulnerable to American and European rivals. Jefferson hoped to take Spain’s territories--piece by piece,--while Napoleon schemed to reestablish a French colonial empire in the Caribbean and North America.

Interweaving the stories of ordinary settlers and imperial decision-makers, Kukla depicts a world of revolutionary intrigue that transformed a small and precarious union into a world power--all without bloodshed and for about four cents an acre.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Until a better one comes along, which is unlikely, this is now the book to read of the growing crop of works on the Louisiana Purchase in this bicentennial year. It differs from Charles Cerami's bracing Jefferson's Great Gamble by its deeper foundation of scholarly knowledge, from Roger Kennedy's overstriving Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause by being less idiosyncratic. Kukla (coauthor of Patrick Henry) offers up a splendid, beautifully written narrative focused tightly on the complex historic origins of the Purchase and on the diplomacy that pulled it off. Necessarily, his tale takes in the whole world, including the aspirations of Napoleon's failed forays into the Western Hemisphere and his resulting need for cash. But Kukla stays firmly on this side of the Atlantic. Jefferson takes center stage, but his Federalist opponents, whose sometimes disunionist machinations kept matters complex, are in the wings. Kukla's portraits of the principal diplomats-Robert Livingston and James Monroe on the American side; Talleyrand, Francois de Barbe-Marbois and Napoleon on the French-deftly illuminate the crucial mix of personality, circumstance and skill that made the United States a continental nation so early in its existence. Unlike many other historians, Kukla favors none of the story's characters but evenhandedly gives all their due. The book lacks only a grand theme to match its grand subject-what most contemporaries and all historians since have judged to be one of the most significant events in the nation's history. Nevertheless, this judicious, aptly illustrated work will gratify all its readers. Rarely does a work of history combine grace of writing with such broad authority.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the U.S and set in motion visions of Manifest Destiny; it dramatically reshaped European influence in North America and helped preserve a tentative Union while establishing it as a territorially rich land. It was also brought about by men who had never seen the Mississippi Valley, in response to political rumblings thousands of miles away. Always controversial, its introduction would eventually force the issue of slavery in the territories. Kukla's narrative wanders slowly, tributary-like, through a formative time for young America. He tells the stories of characters famous and obscure, European and American, before arriving at the story's climax, Jefferson's deal to purchase the "immense wilderness." Readers looking for an analytical edge or historical revisionism won't find it here, and Kukla's casual language may annoy academics, but history buffs will enjoy the level of detail, and the uninitiated will enjoy the thorough explanations of background events like the French Revolution. Overall, this selection is an engaging look at a key historical event, in time for its bicentennial. Brendan Driscoll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (April 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375408126
• ISBN-13: 978-0375408120
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.3 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #597,725 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Relevant and Thought Provoking, July 19, 2003

By 

James Paris "Tarnmoor" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America (Lewis & Clark Expedition) (Hardcover)

What I learned about the Louisiana Purchase in school was pretty cut-and-dried: A bunch of very statesmanlike men wearing powdered wigs made an incredible real estate deal that more than doubled the size of the United States and enabled Manifest Destiny to happen, usually within the next five pages.

Jon Kukla did us all a service by sitting down and asking what the Louisiana Purchase actually meant to the North, the South, and the burgeoning Western Territories, both then, in the more distant future, and even now.

In 1803, New Orleans was a Caribbean port with a large population of free mulattoes, Creoles, French, and Spanish -- not to mention a sprinkling of American traders. It was like nothing that the original Thirteen Colonies ever saw, and it was but a foretaste of the rampant multiculturalism that has become a dominant feature of our lives.

Did you know that the first impulse to secession was not in the South, but in Massachusetts? The "Essex Junto," dating as far back as 1786, allowed itself to be influenced by Spain for purely regional benefits. As late as the Hartford Convention in 1815, the threat of secession was primarily a Yankee threat; only later did the South adopt it.

Jefferson, Livingston, and Monroe tread on new ground in cutting the deal: There was nothing in the new Constitution to allow them such powers, nor was there anything that expressly forbade it. And no sooner was the deal made than the United States began to face new problems, such as the expansion of slavery in the new territories. It was the Purchase that led in an almost direct line to the Missouri Compromise of 1820; and from there, to the Dred Scott Decision; and from there to the horrors of the War Between the States.

Kukla's book can be read on several levels. I read it as an exciting tale of diplomacy between the United States, Spain, and France spanning twenty years. As a work of scholarship, it contains extensive but unobtrusive endnotes, maps, and appendices containing the texts of the 1795 treaty with Spain, the Louisiana Purchase Treaty and Conventions, and some draft amendments to the Constitution proposed by Jefferson in 1803 to legitimize the Purchase.

I did not expect much from this book at first, but Kukla was so successful in working in threads and themes that continue to this day, that the book is highly relevant and thought provoking. It is odd to call a book about diplomacy gripping, but any tale that weaves together Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, Toussaint L'Ouverture (the Black Haitian revolutionary), Talleyrand, and Napoleon Bonaparte so well can be described in no other way.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quite Good, April 25, 2008

By 

Michael E. Fitzgerald (Kingwood, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America (Paperback)

By the time twenty years passed after the American revolution, the young United States, already an immense country by European standards, had yet again doubled its land mass through Thomas Jefferson's Louisianan Purchase. Within the next 16 years, again due to this purchase, it would stretch across the entire North American continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.

The story of this land acquisition is intricate, filled with intrigue. It spans the globe including such diverse locations as Haiti, Madrid, Virginia, New York, Paris, London and New Orleans. It involved scheming, daring and negotiation between traditional contenders France, Great Britain, Spain and the United States and involved a cast of characters Hollywood could only hope for: Napoleon, Jefferson, Monroe, Livingston, Talleyrand, Jay, Wilkerson, Burr, and many, many more.

Jon Kukla does a masterful job of spinning the tale of the world's largest real estate transaction. He makes it clear that as the French Revolution, and Napoleon's empire building, rocked the Atlantic community, Spain's new world empire became increasingly vulnerable to its American and European rivals. Jefferson hoped to take Spain's territories piece by piece, while Napoleon schemed to reestablish French colonial empire in the Caribbean and North America.

Interweaving the stories of ordinary settlers and kings maneuvering on the world stage, the author depicts a world of revolutionary intrigue that transformed a small, faltering experiment in self government into a world power. And all without blood shed and for about 4 cents per acre. Exceedingly well written and with significant attention paid to key transitions and detail this is a most excellent work.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Tons of Detail, March 6, 2007

By 

Carolyn J. (Ventura, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America (Paperback)

I read this book for my own personal research. If you want detail, this has it: Not only what people did, but what they ate and who they were sleeping with. The thing I did not like about the book was each chapter dealt with one thing, for example Pickney's treaty. This made each chapter have to go back and cover time frames in other chapters, so it got a bit confusing with all the overlaps. I would have rather he wrote it straight chronologically. Also, most the chapters had titles that did not give much of a hint as to what was in them, for example: "A Long Train of Intrique", "Banners of Blood", and "Selling a Ship". When I needed to go back and find something, it was very difficult to figure out which chapter it was in. You can't say, "Well, I know it happened before this" because lots of chapters before and after have things from "before this". There is an index, but there are lots of references to Napoleon, Charles IV and Jefferson, so you have to do a lot of extra looking up. Bottom line, very thourough, but difficult to sift through.