Book Review: Explorers of the American West: Mapping the World through Primary Documents

Abstract

Buckley and Nokes have brought together a thoughtful selection of primary sources from the early explorers of the American West, organized around famous expeditions of explorers such as Lewis and Clark, Stephen Long, and John Wesley Powell. Each chapter includes a biography of the explorer featured in the chapter, and approximately ten selected excerpts of primary sources that usually run a page or two in length. Each excerpt has an introductory paragraph that provides historical context for the excerpt, and a few paragraphs of analysis that go beyond summarization and point toward the historical significance of the primary texts.