FROM BARNES & NOBLE: It is the mid-eighteenth century, and in the thirteen colonies founded by Great Britain, anxious colonists desperate to conquer and settle North America’s “First Frontier” beyond the Appalachian Mountains commence a series of bloody battles. These violent conflicts are waged against the Native American tribes whose lands they covet, the French, and the mother country itself in an American Revolution destined to reverberate around the world.

This is the setting of Blood and Treasure, and the guide to this epic narrative is America’s first and arguably greatest pathfinder, Daniel Boone—not the coonskin cap-wearing caricature of popular culture but the flesh-and-blood frontiersman and Revolutionary War hero whose explorations into the forested frontier beyond the great mountains would become the stuff of legend. Now, thanks to painstaking research by two award-winning authors, the story of the brutal birth of the United States is told through the eyes of both the ordinary and larger-than-life men and women who witnessed it.

This fast-paced and fiery narrative, fueled by contemporary diaries and journals, newspaper reports, and eyewitness accounts, is a stirring chronicle of the conflict over America’s “First Frontier” that places the reader at the center of this remarkable epoch and its gripping tales of courage and sacrifice.

I just finished [b:Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America's First Frontier|53137966|Blood and Treasure Daniel Boone and the Fight for America's First Frontier|Bob Drury|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1593448400l/53137966._SY75_.jpg|79888442]Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America's First Frontier by Bob Drury. I wound up liking it, though I very nearly aborted my reading a few pages in. Let me explain.

Any book about the U.S. frontier must necessarily treat with the contentious subject of the American Indians/Native Americans. I have done a lot of reading on the subject, including [b:1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus|39020|1491 New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus|Charles C. Mann|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1545238592l/39020._SY75_.jpg|38742] by Charles C. Mann and [b:War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage|328446|War Before Civilization The Myth of the Peaceful Savage|Lawrence H. Keeley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348973227l/328446._SY75_.jpg|319073] by Lawrence H. Keeley. The narrative of "white man bad, everyone else good" wears thin. The Native Americans had hardly created an idyll before European explorers hit the New World's shores. Long before purposeful settlement occurred, smallpox, diphtheria and other diseases had decimated them. The book's prologue referred to the "slow-motion genocide for the Hurons and Iroquois... and the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, and Choctaw...(and the) Seminoles." On Page 99, the story of Henry Bouquet's distribution of smallpox-drenched blanks to the Ottawa tribe was repeated. There is much controversy about that story, some having to do with the question of how the gifters of the blankets themselves did not get very sick in the process. The epilogue again returns to the theme of the deliberate destruction of Native Americans. Nevertheless I decided to read the book through and I am glad I did.

While I consider myself a history buff, having majored in American History at college, I have done little reading about the pioneer period. The major exception is [b:The Journals of Lewis and Clark|236830|The Journals of Lewis and Clark|Meriwether Lewis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1439914405l/236830._SY75_.jpg|2761980] by Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Bernard DeVoto. William Clark's older brother, George Clark, features prominently. It took me surprisingly long to read this book, perhaps because it contained a lot of information with which I am only vaguely familiar. Suffice to say that Boone's ingenuity, heroism and imperviousness to hardship are properly legendary. Boone and others like him are the real story behind the expansion of the U.S. beyond a cluster of colonies on the coast. This is part of the tale of the greatness of America, one which should be told with fewer apologies than is now fashionable. ( )

The authors' easy reading, user friendly writing style will appeal to general readers. The work itself does an excellent job of capturing the life and times of Daniel Boone, a frontiersman who is just as fascinating in real as in myth.

Unfortunately, the authors can sometimes seem like Native American apologists, which perhaps is simply a sign of the times. A more balanced historical narrative of the brutal conflicts would have been appreciated. ( )

This was a fantastic book. I feel I’ve learned a lot from reading this. I had heard the name Danial Boone before from movies, etc. but this really introduced me to a historical figure I’m surprised I didn’t know more about. Boone didn’t have an easy life. It just mystifies me how brutal man can be to man. Very well written. ( )

A terrific read ( )