Book : Imperfect Union How Jessie And John Fremont Mapped...

-Titulo Original : Imperfect Union How Jessie And John Fremont Mapped The West, Invented Celebrity, And Helped Cause The Civil War

-Fabricante :

Penguin Books

-Descripcion Original:

Steve Inskeep tells the riveting story of John and Jessie Fremont, the husband and wife team who in the 1800s were instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States, and thus became Americas first great political couple John C. Fremont, one of the United States’s leading explorers of the nineteenth century, was relatively unknown in 1842, when he commanded the first of his expeditions to the uncharted West. But in only a few years, he was one of the most acclaimed people of the age - known as a wilderness explorer, bestselling writer, gallant army officer, and latter-day conquistador, who in 1846 began the United States’s takeover of California from Mexico. He was not even 40 years old when Americans began naming mountains and towns after him. He had perfect timing, exploring the West just as it captured the nation’s attention. But the most important factor in his fame may have been the person who made it all possible: his wife, Jessie Benton Fremont. Jessie, the daughter of a United States senator who was deeply involved in the West, provided her husband with entree to the highest levels of government and media, and his career reached new heights only a few months after their elopement. During a time when women were allowed to make few choices for themselves, Jessie - who herself aspired to roles in exploration and politics - threw her skill and passion into promoting her husband. She worked to carefully edit and publicize his accounts of his travels, attracted talented young men to his circle, and lashed out at his enemies. She became her husband’s political adviser, as well as a power player in her own right. In 1856, the famous couple strategized as John became the first-ever presidential nominee of the newly established Republican Party. With rare detail and in consummate style, Steve Inskeep tells the story of a couple whose joint ambitions and talents intertwined with those of the nascent United States itself. Taking advantage of expanding news media, aided by an increasingly literate public, the two linked their names to the three great national movements of the time-westward settlement, women’s rights, and opposition to slavery. Together, John and Jessie Fremont took parts in events that defined the country and gave rise to a new, more global America. Theirs is a surprisingly modern tale of ambition and fame; they lived in a time of social and technological disruption and divisive politics that foreshadowed our own. In Imperfect Union, as Inskeep navigates these deeply transformative years through Jessie and John’s own union, he reveals how the Fremonts’ adventures amount to nothing less than a tour of the early American soul. Review “In the hands of National Public Radio journalist Steve Inskeep, the Fremonts become a vehicle to explore media, the making of modern celebrity, and the fascinating world of mid-nineteenth century American politics . . . [Inskeep’s] contribution is to frame these disparate threads through the lens of a widened Fremont circle, masterfully weaving the narratives together in highly readable prose. What emerges is a rich tapestry of not only the Fremonts’ relationship (an “imperfect union”), but also their imperfect midcentury United States as well.” -Missouri Historical Review“Revelatory . . . a fresh look that brings 21st-century vision to bear on the 19th-century story. In writing about both Fremont and his wife, Jessie, the aggressive promoter of his career, Inskeep does two important things. He shines an unsparing light on his subjects, and he finds unnerving similarities between the Fremonts’ America and our own. Like Candice Millard’s Destiny of the Republic, an improbably thrilling book about the Garfield assassination, Imperfect Union finds a big, resonant, star-studded subject that has been hiding in plain sight. . . . If the book’s purpose is to illuminate and chill, mission accomplished.” -The New York Times “[A] fine new book b