Fur, fortune, and empire : the epic history of the fur trade in America Eric Jay Dolin

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dolin, Eric Jay

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fur trade--North America--History.

Fur trade.

Fur trade--West (U.S.)--History.

Frontier and pioneer life--North America.

Frontier and pioneer life.

Europeans--North America--History.

Europeans.

Imperialism--History.

Imperialism.

Europe--Colonies--America.

Europe.

North America--History.

North America.

North America--Ethnic relations.

North America--Discovery and exploration--European.

North America--Economic conditions.

Physical Description:

xvii, 442 p., [16] p. of plates : ill., maps ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : W.W. Norton & Co., c2010.

Summary:

For all of fur's contentious position in American culture today, historian Eric Jay Dolin shows its centrality in our nation's ever-surprising history. He argues that the trade in animal skins turned colonial America into a tumultuous frontier where global powers battled for control. From the seventeenth century right on up to the Gilded Age, the developed world's appetite for fur made the new continent, with its wealth of fur-bearing wildlife, a seemingly inexhaustible resource. The result was a major boost in the evolution of the colonies into a powerful new player on the world stage. Dolin sheds insight on the ways the fur trade created international tensions--in New England, the Great Lakes, and in the expanding West. Fur traders were often the first white men to map major rivers, forests, and mountains, then soon pushed Native Americans off their lands as John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company attempted to monopolize the West.--From publisher description.

Contents:

Pt. 1. Furs settle the New World

"As fine a river as can be found"

The precious beaver

New Amsterdam rising

"The Bible and the beaver"

pt. 2. Clash of empires

Competition, conflict, and chicanery

"Many hounds are the hare's death"

Adieu to the French

Americans oust the British

pt. 3. America heads West

"A perfect golden round of profits"

Up the Missouri

Astoria

Mountain men

Taos trappers and Astor's empire

Fall of the beaver

The last robe

Epilogue: End of an era.

Notes:

Maps on endpapers.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [409]-411) and index.

Local Notes:

The Indian Rights Association Complementary Collection.

ISBN:

9780393067101

0393067106

9780393340020 (pbk.)

0393340023 (pbk.)

OCLC:

449865266