Empires, Nations, and Families: A History of the North American West, 1800-1860

The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 doubled the size of the new United States, promising not only land but prosperity for its citizens. But the West was not the virgin wilderness of common myth. America was a newcomer in a place already complicated by vying empires-Native and European. The author traces the network of multiethnic family associations which had formed the basis for the global fur trade for centuries