The companion volume to Ken Burns's PBS documentary film, with more than 150 illustrations, most in full color.
In the spring of 1804, at the behest of President Thomas Jefferson, a party of explorers called the Corps of Discovery crossed the Mississippi River and started up the Missouri, heading west into the newly acquired Louisiana Territory.
The expedition, led by two remarkable and utterly different commanders -- the brilliant but troubled Meriwether Lewis and his trustworthy, gregarious friend William Clark -- was to be the United States' first exploration into unknown spaces. The unlikely crew came from every corner of the young nation: soldiers from New Hampshire and Pennsylvania and Kentucky, French Canadian boatmen, several sons of white fathers and Indian mothers, a slave named York, and eventually a Shoshone Indian woman, Sacagawea, who brought along her infant son.
Together they would cross the continent, searching for the fabled Northwest Passage that had been the great dream of explorers since the time of Columbus. Along the way they would face incredible hardship, disappointment, and danger; record in their journals hundreds of animals and plants previously unknown to science; encounter a dizzying diversity of Indian cultures; and, most of all, share in one of America's most enduring adventures. Their story may have passed into national mythology, but never before has their experience been rendered as vividly, in words and pictures, as in this marvelous homage by Dayton Duncan.
Plentiful excerpts from the journals kept by the two captains and four enlisted men convey the raw emotions, turbulent spirits, and constant surprises of the explorers, who each day confronted the unknown with fresh eyes. An elegant preface by Ken Burns, as well as contributions from Stephen E. Ambrose, William Least Heat-Moon, and Erica Funkhouser, enlarge upon important threads in Duncan's narrative, demonstrating the continued potency of events that took place almost two centuries ago. And a wealth of paintings, photographs, journal sketches, maps, and film images from the PBS documentary lends this historic, nation-redefining milestone a vibrancy and immediacy to which no American will be immune.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
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初读时,我以为这会是一本传统意义上的“英雄史诗”,充满了对征服与胜利的歌颂,但随着情节的推进,我发现它远比我想象的要复杂和沉重得多。书中对“代价”的探讨是如此深刻而令人不安。它没有回避开拓者们在追求目标过程中对环境造成的破坏,对原住民文明产生的冲击,以及他们自身在漫长旅途中付出的巨大牺牲——不仅仅是生命的损失,更是精神层面的磨损与改变。作者用一种近乎冷峻的客观视角,记录了那些难以启齿的道德困境和人性光辉的瞬间。它迫使我不断地反思“进步”的定义,以及在面对未知的世界时,人类的贪婪与敬畏心是如何相互拉扯的。这本书的伟大之处在于,它提供了一个多维度的观察平台,让你既能理解前人的勇气,也能对他们行为的后果进行深刻的反思,看完之后心里久久不能平静。
评分这本书在信息密度的处理上达到了一个惊人的平衡点。一方面,它毫不吝啬地提供了大量的地理学、植物学乃至不同原住民部落文化的专业知识,这些内容翔实得让人咋舌,仿佛作者本身就是一位博物学家和人类学家。我清晰地记下了好几种北美特有的植物的拉丁学名和它们的药用价值,甚至开始关注起河流的水文特征来。另一方面,这些硬核的知识点从未以生硬的教科书方式呈现,而是巧妙地编织进了日常的对话和遭遇之中。比如,某次迷路时,对星象的观察和对特定树木的辨识直接成了生存的关键,知识在这里成为了救命稻草,而不是冷冰冰的数据。这种将学术深度与叙事流畅性完美融合的能力,实在令人佩服。它不仅满足了我对新奇事物的好奇心,更在不经意间拓展了我对那个特定时空背景下人类认知边界的理解,读完后感觉自己的知识库得到了实质性的扩充。
评分我非常欣赏这本书在情节推进上的巧妙布局,它不是一条简单的直线叙事,而是像一条复杂交织的河流系统。作者善于运用多重线索和时间跳跃的手法,让读者始终保持着一种探索和解谜的状态。比如,前一章可能还沉浸在某个季节的丰收与安宁中,紧接着下一章可能就猛然跳跃到几年后某个危机四伏的场景,这种节奏的张弛有度,极大地增强了故事的张力。更令人称道的是,那些看似不经意的“插叙”或“旁白”,往往在故事后期会以意想不到的方式与主线情节汇合,起到画龙点睛的作用,让人拍案叫绝,并立刻想要回翻前面的章节去寻找蛛丝马迹。这种高度结构化的叙事,展现了作者对整体框架有着极其清晰的掌控力。它拒绝了平铺直叙的乏味,而是用精巧的结构艺术,让历史的进程读起来如同最引人入胜的悬疑小说一般,让人欲罢不能,连熬夜都舍不得放下手中的书卷。
评分我不得不说,这本书的语言风格变化多端,简直就像一位高明的魔术师在玩弄文字。有些章节的行文是那种古典的、略带沉思的散文体,句子结构复杂,充满着对自然哲理的深刻反思,读起来需要放慢呼吸,细细咀嚼每一个词汇的深意。而另一些叙事段落,特别是描绘冲突和困境时,语言又变得极为凝练和直接,充满了动感和紧迫感,读起来让人心跳加速,几乎能听到风声和马蹄声。最让我惊艳的是作者在刻画人物内心挣扎时的细腻笔触。他没有简单地将角色塑造成英雄或恶棍,而是深入到人性的灰色地带,展示了他们在极端环境下的恐惧、希望和背叛。这些心理描写极其真实且富有层次感,让我对书中的主要人物产生了复杂而深刻的情感共鸣,感觉他们仿佛是我认识的某个邻居,鲜活得让人难以忘怀。这本书在文学性上达到了一个很高的水准,绝非一般的历史记录可以比拟。
评分这本书的装帧设计真是让人眼前一亮,硬壳精装的质感,配合着那种略带复古的字体和烫金工艺,一下子就抓住了我的注意力。打开扉页,那几张精心绘制的地图,线条流畅却又细节满满,仿佛一下子把我带回了那个充满未知与探索的时代。我尤其喜欢那种纸张的触感,略微粗糙却又坚韧有力,翻阅起来有一种庄重感。这不仅仅是一本书,更像是一个精心制作的收藏品,放在书架上都显得格外有分量。我甚至花了好大力气才决定要不要在上面做笔记,生怕破坏了它原有的美感。作者在叙事节奏的把控上非常老道,开篇并没有急于抛出宏大的主题,而是从一些细微的生活片段入手,比如对当时工具的描述,对日常食物的细致描绘,这些都非常有效地为后续的冒险之旅铺垫了基调。那种对历史细节的考据可见一斑,读起来一点也不觉枯燥,反而充满了亲临现场的代入感。这本书的排版也处理得恰到好处,大片的留白让眼睛得到了充分的休息,使得阅读体验得到了极大的提升,这在当代出版物中是比较少见的了。
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