The Undiscovered Country

Praise for The Undiscovered Country:

“Monumental . . . . Mr. Hutton presents the rich and complex story of the westering American frontier in exquisite detail, displaying a narrative power that propels the reader forward across seven generations of exploration, conquest and tragedy… Mr. Hutton takes a fresh approach to the American West that elevates The Undiscovered Country above all preceding works on the subject.

Mr. Hutton is to be commended for the masterly manner in which his research blends the best of the classic works on the West with the finest modern scholarship. His command of the subject matter is indisputable. Yet there is nothing didactic about The Undiscovered Country. The narrative never wavers. The author’s use of the lives of seminal figures to anchor the narrative draws the reader more deeply into the story than would a more conventional approach. It is an experiment in writing history that succeeds admirably. With The Undiscovered Country, Mr. Hutton has produced the definitive popular history of the American West.” —Peter Cozzens, Wall Street Journal

“In The Undiscovered Country, Paul Hutton gives us the full sweep of the westward push in a careful selection of finely crafted biographies. The result is a complexly braided narrative that captures the tale of America’s steady continental crawl in all its heroism, violence, treachery, and grandeur. Here is the much-anticipated magnum opus of a historian who has rightly been called the dean of Western American studies.” —Hampton Sides, New York Times bestselling author of Blood and Thunder and The Wide Wide Sea

“A richly told, vibrant, insightful epic of the frontier . . . . Historian Paul Andrew Hutton’s book sheds a defining light on some of the major events, concepts and the people involved in the westward expansion of the young nation.” —Albuquerque Journal

“A major contribution to American history.” —Denver Post

“The Undiscovered Country is epic in proportion, literary in its style and magnificently layered in details, facts and little-known gems of history woven into the fabric of a wide-ranging narrative…. Hutton’s is the most anticipated history of the West of the year—and maybe the decade.” —True West

“A timely piece that is hard to put down. Hutton’s extraordinarily well-researched and in-depth perspective of a period in American history that has captured imaginations and proved eternally fascinating has something for everyone. For experts, lay historians, and casual readers alike.” —Library Journal (starred review)

“[Hutton] tells a good and vivid story that’s abundantly sympathetic to the Indigenous people who stood in the way of that westward movement, such as the Apache and Comanche Tribes, whose stories are central to Hutton’s.” —Kirkus

“In The Undiscovered Country, Paul Andrew Hutton, America’s most prominent Western historian, takes readers on a sharply observed journey through the continent’s ever-beckoning West. Here are lively tales of Washington, Boone, Crockett, Frémont, Carson, and Cody, daring to explore new lands, or, for Cody, engage in and then work to preserve a grand American West, and all woven through the lives of people who knew that land first, Red Eagle, Mangas Coloradas, Cochise, Sitting Bull. The narrative is clever in concept, sweeping in scope, crisply written, and exhaustively documented. This is Hutton at his finest.” —Paul L. Hedren, author of Sitting Bull’s War

“When Hamlet speaks of ‘the undiscovere’d country,’ he ponders what lies beyond death. For those enterprising would-be conquerors of North America, however, death was not in contemplation. Paul A. Hutton’s new The Undiscovered Country offers an intimate look at those westering generations through the lives and fortunes of men whose ambitions and experiences, both triumphant and tragic, emblemed their times. From the perpetual frontiersmen Daniel Boone and David Crockett, to inevitable adversaries Red Eagle, Mangas Coloradas, and Sitting Bull, and on to the last of their “Wild West” ilk, Kit Carson and “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Hutton tells a powerful story, rich with texture, and solidly founded in the sources. Eschewing triumphalism and guilt alike, his narrative recovers the sense of what it was like for both American frontiersmen and Native Americans to experience the settlement of a continent.” –William C. Davis, author of The Greatest Fury

“An epic telling of a history I thought I already knew. I was mistaken. No one threads the needle between the dark contradictions of American history with such breathtaking clarity, honesty and wit as Paul Andrew Hutton. He is the undisputed king of western history.” —Bob Boze Bell, executive editor True West magazine

“The Undiscovered Country is one of those books that plunks you down and holds you in place for days. It’s the sort of sweeping, multi-layered, character-driven narrative I fell in love with as a young reader and have been pining for ever since. Thank you Paul Hutton for not just a history lesson, but a lesson in writing history.” —Stephen Harrigan, author of Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas

“Riveting and eye-opening. Renowned western scholar Paul Hutton has written a pivotal masterpiece that changes our way of thinking about the American West. Persuasively delivered, it shows how seven white and Indian protagonists shaped the identity of a new nation that had previously been considered an ‘undiscovered country’ to Europeans. This is Paul Hutton’s greatest book–intellectually bold, engaging, and brilliant.” —Donald L. Fixico (Muscogee, Seminole, Shawnee, and Sac and Fox), Regents’ and Distinguished Foundation Professor of History, Arizona State University.

“This history of the vast territory between the Appalachians and the Sierras skillfully interlaces both the romance and tragedy of the American frontier. Paul Hutton’s narrative is ‘flesh and blood’ history, an epic tale of the people who created lives and contested for control of this American heartland. Focusing upon key historical figures, Hutton illustrates how their lives often encompassed contradictions: success and failure, heroic conquest and heroic resistance, but his saga enlarges our understanding of their influence and importance. The Undiscovered Country is narrative history at its best. It will appeal to a broad audience.” —R. David Edmunds, Watson Professor of American History Emeritus, University of Texas at Dallas

“Hutton blends history with human drama in this sweeping narrative of ambition, exploration, and transformation.” —Book Delico