Winner of the 2009 Spur Award from Western Writers of America
"This is a book for those who seek an accurate, not pietistic, history of a way of life long past." -- Publishers Weekly
"By taking a different approach to Boone and carefully basing his judgments on primary sources, Brown has produced a well-written book that nicely complements the earlier biographies." -- Library Journal
"[A]n exceedingly well-documented, careful, sympathetic, and superbly written biography of one of America's preeminent frontiersmen." -- History
"A captivating read. Brown writes with an eye for detail -- the contents of a meal, the depth of a snowfall, the posture of an overworked horse -- that renders a vivid and visceral portrait of Boone's world." -- Journal of Southern History
In this acclaimed book, Meredith Mason Brown traces Daniel Boone's life from his Pennsylvania childhood to his experiences in the militia and his rise as an unexcelled woodsman, explorer, and backcountry leader. In the process, we meet the authentic Boone: he didn't wear coonskin caps; he read and wrote better than many frontiersmen; he was not the first to settle Kentucky. A Quaker who became a skilled frontier fighter, Boone is a study in contradictions.
Frontiersman explores Boone's crucial role in the transformation of America from a group of colonies to an independent nation. Brown paints a rich portrayal of colonial and Revolutionary America, the relations between whites and Indians, the opening and settling of the Old West, and the birth of the American national identity.
Supported with copious maps, illustrations, endnotes, and a detailed chronology of Boone's life, Frontiersman provides a fresh and accurate rendering of a man most people know only as a folk hero -- and of the nation that has mythologized him for over two centuries.
Meredith Mason Brown, a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, is a lawyer who lives in Stonington, Connecticut. His ancestors in Virginia and Kentucky knew Boone well. He is the author of several books on American history.
