Book
Life on the Mississippi : an epic American adventure / Rinker Buck.
"The eagerly awaited return of master American storyteller Rinker Buck, Life on the Mississippi is an epic, enchanting blend of history and adventure in which Buck builds a wooden flatboat from the grand "flatboat era" of the 1800s and sails it down the Mississippi River, illuminating the forgotten past of America's first western frontier"-- Provided by publisher.
Record details
- ISBN: 9781501106378 (hardcover)
- Physical Description: 397 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm
- Edition: First Avid Reader Press hardcover edition.
- Publisher: New York : Avid Reader Press, 2022.
Content descriptions
| General Note: | Includes index. |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Buck, Rinker, 1950- > Travel > Mississippi River. Mississippi River > Description and travel. Mississippi River > History. |
| Genre: | Biographies. Personal narratives. |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Tsuga Consortium.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stroud Branch | 977 Buc | 31681010288249 | NONFIC | Available | - |
- Baker & Taylor
"The eagerly awaited return of master American storyteller Rinker Buck, Life on the Mississippi is an epic, enchanting blend of history and adventure in which Buck builds a wooden flatboat from the grand "flatboat era" of the 1800s and sails it down the Mississippi River, illuminating the forgotten past of America's first western frontier"-- - Baker & Taylor
The author of the New York Times best-seller The Oregon Trail, building an authentic wooden flatboat from a bygone era, casts off down the Mississippi river, charting his own geographical and emotional journey, while providing a satisfying work of history. - Simon and Schuster
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * âAudaciousâ¦Life on the Mississippi sparkles.â âThe Wall Street Journal * âA rich mix of history, reporting, and personal introspection.â âSt. Louis Post-Dispatch * âBoth a travelogue and an engaging history lesson about Americaâs westward expansion.â âThe Christian Science Monitor
The eagerly awaited return of master American storyteller Rinker Buck, Life on the Mississippi is an epic, enchanting blend of history and adventure in which Buck builds a wooden flatboat from the grand âflatboat eraâ of the 1800s and sails it down the Mississippi River, illuminating the forgotten past of Americaâs first western frontier.
Seven years ago, readers around the country fell in love with a singular American voice: Rinker Buck, whose infectious curiosity about history launched him across the West in a covered wagon pulled by mules and propelled his book about the trip, The Oregon Trail, to ten weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, Buck returns to chronicle his latest incredible adventure: building a wooden flatboat from the bygone era of the early 1800s and journeying down the Mississippi River to New Orleans.
A modern-day Huck Finn, Buck casts off down the river on the flatboat Patience accompanied by an eccentric crew of daring shipmates. Over the course of his voyage, Buck steers his fragile wooden craft through narrow channels dominated by massive cargo barges, rescues his first mate gone overboard, sails blindly through fog, breaks his ribs not once but twice, and camps every night on sandbars, remote islands, and steep levees. As he charts his own journey, he also delivers a richly satisfying work of history that brings to life a lost era.
The role of the flatboat in our countryâs evolution is far more significant than most Americans realize. Between 1800 and 1840, millions of farmers, merchants, and teenage adventurers embarked from states like Pennsylvania and Virginia on flatboats headed beyond the Appalachians to Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Settler families repurposed the wood from their boats to build their first cabins in the wilderness; cargo boats were broken apart and sold to build the boomtowns along the water route. Joining the river traffic were floating brothels, called âgun boatsâ; âsmithy boatsâ for blacksmiths; even âwhiskey boatsâ for alcohol. In the present day, Americaâs inland rivers are a superhighway dominated by leviathan bargesâcarrying $80 billion of cargo annuallyâall descended from flatboats like the ramshackle Patience.
As a historian, Buck resurrects the eraâs adventurous spirit, but he also challenges familiar myths about American expansion, confronting the bloody truth behind settlersâ push for land and wealth. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced more than 125,000 members of the Cherokee, Choctaw, and several other tribes to travel the Mississippi on a brutal journey en route to the barrens of Oklahoma. Simultaneously, almost a million enslaved African Americans were carried in flatboats and marched by foot 1,000 miles over the Appalachians to the cotton and cane fields of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, birthing the term âsold down the river.â Buck portrays this watershed era of American expansion as it was really lived.
With a rare narrative power that blends stirring adventure with absorbing untold history, Life on the Mississippi is a musÂcular and majestic feat of storytelling from a writer who may be the closest that we have today to Mark Twain.
