Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion

From Thomas Jefferson’s birth in 1743 to the California Gold Rush in 1849, America’s westward expansion comes to life in the hands of a writer fascinated by the way individual lives link up, illuminate one another, and collectively impact history.

Jefferson, a naturalist and visionary, dreamed that the United States would stretch across the North American continent, from ocean to ocean. The account of how that dream became reality unfolds in the stories of Jefferson and nine other Americans...