A Newer World : Kit Carson John C Fremont And The Claiming Of The American West (Paperback)

by David Roberts (Author) "THEY set out, fifteen men on fifteen mules, shortly after dawn on August 12, 1842, carrying two days' worth of food-dried buffalo meat, macaroni, and..." (more)
Key Phrases: camp dismal, dictated memoir, fourth expedition, Kit Carson, New Mexico, Bent's Fort (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Unlike, in many ways, but forever joined, the figures of Kit Carson, frontier scout and soldier, and John Frémont, politician and bureaucrat, loom large in the history of the American West. Carson is remembered today as something of a dime-novel hero or as a villain responsible for the deaths of innocent women and children during the Long Walk of the Navajo. For his part, Frémont, famed in the mid-19th century, is all but forgotten.

Frémont was a complicated, flamboyant, and scandal-ridden figure whose quest for fame proved to be his undoing. David Roberts, the author of several popular histories of the West, describes Frémont's undeniable contributions to the growth of the American nation in A Newer World, a narrative account of the explorer's career in the West from the early 1840s to the advent of the Civil War. "Frémont's expeditions," Roberts writes, "were significant not so much for crossing land never before seen by Americans as for thrusting the Great West into the awareness of a nation hungry to expand. He was the classic example of the right man in the right place at the right time." So, too, was Kit Carson, the taciturn frontiersman who guided Frémont and saved his life on more than one occasion. Roberts's sympathetic but not uncritical tale of their crossed destinies puts human faces on two men lost to legend. --Gregory McNamee --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
Kit Carson (1809-1868) and John Fremont (1813-1890) are not generally regarded as a pair the way Lewis and Clark are in terms of exploring new territory. Indeed, Carson and Fr?mont are only teamed in two of the four expeditions recounted by Roberts in his stirring tale of the opening of the American West. But the author makes a strong case that the two explorers contributed as much as anybody to America's westward movement. Of the four expeditions described by Roberts (Escape Routes, etc.), a frequent contributor to Outside and other magazines, two are the most intriguing: Fremont and Carson's 1845-1846 excursion into California, which played a major role in the U.S. taking control of that territory from Mexico, and Fremont's 1848-1849 trek that began as a search for a railroad path through the Rockies, but ended in disaster. Roberts has such a tremendous feel for his subject that it is disappointing that he didn't devote more space to Fremont's role in California's Bear Flag revolt. But the ground Roberts covers captures the beauty and harshness of life on the frontier in a vivid and passionate style. The treatment of Native Americans during America's march west is another prominent story line: while Roberts is quick to criticize the nation's Indian policy, he puts it in the context of the times. With Carson and Fremont surrounded by a cast of colorful characters, Roberts delivers an engrossing story of a period in American history when explorers never knew what they would find around the next bend in the trail. (Jan.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; illustrated edition edition (January 16, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684870215
• ISBN-13: 978-0684870212
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #440,393 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Editor needed, June 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Newer World: Kit Carson, John C. Fremont and the Claiming of the American West (Hardcover)

David Roberts needs a strong editor, one who is not afraid to exercise some control. I love this topic, but after 100 pages I found it all too easy to put this book down. Two things made it less than stellar reading: (1) There is probably too much disjointed trivia (I say "probably" because some readers may want every word of it). The writing simply didn't flow for me. (2) Roberts should be taken to the woodshed for his pretentious vocabulary, such as using "punition" when "punishment" would be the appropriate word. This happens on every page. He reminds me of a very insecure professor I had who would say such things as "the largesse of the Greek theater," when he meant the "largeness." The goal of every writer should be to communicate, not to exhibit psuedo-erudition. PS: I taught my first college English class in 1967, so, yes, I have a little experience in these things.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wouldn't You Know, October 21, 2001

By	"naia1" (HI, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Newer World: Kit Carson, John C. Fremont and the Claiming of the American West (Hardcover)

I'm beginning to think that one of Dave Roberts' favorite pastimes is debunking, or at the very least shedding new light on, old myths. He did a bang up job in "Great Exploration Hoaxes," and continues here with his examination of John Charles Fremont and Kit Carson.

Fremont, (in case you were like me and had no idea who he was), was a surveyor and leader of 5 expeditions into the west. His fame was due mostly to the fact that he was in the right place at the right time. He also had an industrious, wordsmith for a wife who turned his reports into interesting accounts of his journeys. These, when published, were instantly popular with a public that was just beginning to catch the Wild West Fever.

Nicknamed "The Pathfinder," Fremont actually did very little original exploring. Instead he followed the trails pioneered by the early mountain men who had crisscrossed the western frontier in search of beaver. Fremont's guide on these expeditions was Kit Carson.

Frankly, Kit Carson is by far the more interesting of the two men, and Roberts does a good job of reconstructing a personality which was by nature very private. His job was complicated by the fact that Carson was illiterate and disliked being in the limelight. Nevertheless his actions, which were recorded by many (including Fremont) speak eloquently about the man. This is a fascinating read for anyone who enjoys redisovering history through the eyes of a talented writer.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hands-On History, January 31, 2002

By	Rodney Meek (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

You know, it used to be that historians would content themselves with wandering into the university or national library to idly pore over musty and ancient tomes and monographs, and that this would constitute the bulk of their research. These days, though, historians are a hardier breed, and they like to race excitedly across the countryside, getting a firsthand glimpse at historical sites and badgering old codgers for oral accounts.

David Roberts is of this latter breed, and it shows in his work. Evidently, he is a mountaineer of some accomplishment: he co-wrote one book with Conrad Anker, who was on the expedition that found Mallory's body on Everest, and yet another with Jon Krakauer of "Into Thin Air" fame. So he was not one to merely read about the exploits of Fremont and Carson; he decided to personally travel in their footsteps, across plain and desert and mountain. Consequently, his book is informed by his own knowledge of travel conditions in the West and his assessment of the various camp sites and surrounding terrain. He has visited most of the key locations and knowledgeably discusses their current conditions.

As for archival material and existing biographies of the duo, Roberts is not at all shy about repeatedly proclaiming his opinions of their merits. Many previous works on Fremont and Carson are dismissed as being factually flawed, overly Freudian, or hopelessly biased. Unlike some previous authors in this field, Roberts was able to draw upon the long-lost secret diaries of Charles Preuss, who accompanied Fremont on his first, second, and fourth expeditions. The Preuss material is an invaluable corrective to the self-serving official histories penned jointly by Fremont and his wife Jessie, and the documents cast Fremont in a far worse light.

Roberts is also sensitive to the Native American side of the story, and goes to considerable lengths to discuss the involvement of Fremont and particularly of Carson in Indian affairs. This might not sit well with readers who uncritically buy into the "Manifest Destiny" school of thought.

On the whole, Carson comes off rather well in this account, as Roberts strives to shift popular opinion away from the revisionist view of the scout as a savage and barbaric Indian killer. Fremont, however, gets relentlessly mauled, and based on the surviving independent accounts of his fourth expedition, rightfully so. His historical accomplishments may have been significant (not so much for original discoveries as for the popularization of westward expansion), but he seems to have been very much lacking as a man.

This is a boldly written and robust survey of the accomplishments of Carson and Fremont, and it definitely has a lot to recommend it. Readers of exploration literature or of the American West will want to pick it up.