Product Description

From The Louisiana Purchase

Like many other major events in world history, the Louisiana Purchase is a fascinating mix of destiny and individual energy and creativity. . . . Thomas Jefferson would have been less than human had he not claimed a major share of the credit. In a private letter . . . the president, reviving a favorite metaphor, said he "very early saw" Louisiana was a "speck" that could turn into a "tornado." He added that the public never knew how near "this catastrophe was." But he decided to calm the hotheads of the west and "endure" Napoleon’s aggression, betting that a war with England would force Bonaparte to sell. This policy "saved us from the storm." Omitted almost entirely from this account is the melodrama of the purchase, so crowded with "what ifs" that might have changed the outcome–and the history of the world.

The reports of the Lewis and Clark expedition . . . electrified the nation with their descriptions of a region of broad rivers and rich soil, of immense herds of buffalo and other game, of grassy prairies seemingly as illimitable as the ocean. . . . From the Louisiana Purchase would come, in future decades, the states of Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and large portions of what is now North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Minnesota, Colorado, and Louisiana. For the immediate future, the purchase, by doubling the size of the United States, transformed it from a minor to a major world power. The emboldened Americans soon absorbed West and East Florida and fought mighty England to a bloody stalemate in the War of 1812. Looking westward, the orators of the 1840s who preached the "Manifest Destiny" of the United States to preside from sea to shining sea based their oratorical logic on the Louisiana Purchase.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #922958 in Books
• Published on: 2003-06-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Most high school students ought to remember learning a little something about the Louisiana Purchase, but this pivotal event in American history has rarely received sustained attention until this year, the event's bicentennial. Noted historian Fleming's brief study, an entry in Wiley's Turning Points series, presents an overstuffed look at the machinations that prompted Napoleon, famous for his conquests and colonial aspirations, to sell this vast piece of land for $15 million. Fleming's account highlights the importance of two leaders, Thomas Jefferson and Napoleon, along with their closest advisers, but the most memorable figures are the handful of diplomatic negotiators working behind the scenes, like Robert Livingston, the ambassador to France who originated the idea of buying the Louisiana territory, thereby easing the threat of war between the U.S. and France. The narrative weaves in several key events on both sides of the Atlantic, including the rampant yellow fever in Santo Domingo that substantially delayed and weakened Napoleon's troops, volatile conversations between Jefferson and his cabinet about whether the purchase required an amendment to the Constitution and Napoleon's near retraction of the sale. The story carries a surprising amount of drama, though Fleming (Liberty! The American Revolution) does little to play this up. His narrative is straightforward but cluttered with detail, showing more breadth than depth, and is intently focused on the "mix of destiny and individual energy and creativity" that supported one of the world's great diplomatic triumphs.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Fleming needs no introduction to history buffs, and in this concise new history of the Louisiana Purchase, the latest entry in Wiley's Turning Points series, he offers a treasury of forgotten details and new insights about this landmark deal that doubled the size of the country and opened the way to expansion west of the Mississippi. Conventional high-school civics classes traditionally presented a foresighted Thomas Jefferson driving a hard bargain to grab the new territories from the French for pennies on the dollar. Instead, Fleming reveals a less than glorious Jefferson, sending signals to Napoleon that we wouldn't mind at all if the French overthrew the black hero of Santo Domingo, Toussaint L'Ouverture. Fleming's presentation is compelling even in its brevity, thanks in large part to his capsule descriptions of the colorful cast of characters--not the least of which was the French foreign minister, Talleyrand, and the American envoy to Paris, Robert Livingston. An informative addition to the literature of this period. Allen Weakland
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"...competently written and sure footed..." (Times Literary Supplement, February 2004)

Most high school students ought to remember learning a little something about the Louisiana Purchase, but his pivotal event in American history has rarely received sustained attention until this year, the event's bicentennial. Noted historian Fleming's brief study, an entry in Wiley's Turning Points series, presents an overstuffed look at the machinations that prompted Napoleon, famous for his conquests and colonial aspirations, to sell this vast piece of land for $15 million. Fleming's account highlights the importance of two leaders, Thomas Jefferson and Napoleon, along with their closest advisers, but the most memorable figures are the handful of diplomatic negotiators working behind the scenes, life Robert Livingston, the ambassador to France who originated the idea of buying the Louisiana territory, therefore by easing the threat of war between the U. S. and France. The narrative weaves in several key events on both sides of the Atlantic, including the rampant yellow fever in Santo Domingo and substantially delayed and weakened Napoleon's troops, volatile conversations between Jefferson and his cabinet about whether the purchase required an amendment to the Constitution and Napoleon's near retraction of the sale. The story carries a surprising amount of drama, though Fleming (Liberty! The American Revolution) does little to play this up. His narrative is straightforward but cluttered with detail, showing more breadth than depth, and is intently focused on the "mix of destiny and individual energy and creativity" that supported one of the world's great diplomatic triumphs. (July 11)
Forecast: This could do well in a bicentennial display with John Kukla's A Wilderness So Immense and Charles Cerami's Jefferson's Great Gamble, which offer fuller accounts of the purchase (Publishers Weekly, May 26, 2003)

"...there should be more books like this: concise, tightly argued, clearly written..." (Sunday Times, 31 August 2003)

"...competently written and sure footed..." -- Times Literary Supplement, February 2004

"...there should be more books like this: concise, tightly argued, clearly written..." -- Sunday Times, 31 August 2003

Customer Reviews

You Never Knew How Much you Didn't Know
This is a great history.

We all knew that the La. Purchase was a "steal" perpetrated during the Jefferson administration, that Bonaparte needed the money, that Lewis and Clark explored the territory and Jefferson skirted the Constitution to make the deal.

This book tells in very readable prose all that you probably did not know beyond that skeletal history - like the Lewis and Clark mission started as a military reconnoiter and only later turned into a scientific one.

Mr. Fleming takes the reader into the palace and diplomatic intrigues of France, Spain and England to tell us how the purchase really came about. He includes the bribes and backdoor dealings emanating from Paris and how they were understood or misunderstood in America. Mr. Fleming also portrays well the fledging politics and "spinning" in the new UNited States. Included are the views of the naysayers on both sides of the ocean in all four countries as well.

This is well-written and interesting throughout. Fleming's short descriptioins of each major character are brief but very concise. There is not a wasted word in the book. I strongly recommend it to anyone with even a passing history of the United States.

Not history at its worst, but it does have shortcomings
I enjoyed reading this little book. Fleming is a well known historian who spins out an improbable tale of how our country more than doubled in size overnight and how it almost didn't happen. If it were fiction I'm not certain I would consider it plausible. But it happened. My main gripe is this: Where the blazes are the index and bibliography? This smells of a publishing decision, not Fleming's. Whoever made it, it was wrong-headed.

Substandard?!--Nonsense!
"Substandard"?!--Hardly. "what territories it encompassed"?!--"who explored it"?!--These things are left out because these questions are answered by any American history textbook, ad nauseum.

What Fleming's (short) book concentrates on is exactly what is neglected in textbooks: "the diplomatic tug of war". As usual, he does it with a writing style that is captivating.