The Tide of Empire: America's March to the Pacific

By Michael Golay

A vivid tableau of the American conquest of the Pacific Coast "With Broughton's expedition, the Americans and the British had posted competing claims to a vast expanse of the Pacific Northwest. The area in contention would encompass all of present Oregon and Washington and parts of Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and British Columbia. Robert Gray, the dour Yankee trader, and William Broughton, the obscure British naval officer, nonentities both, sailed away from the misty coasts of the Columbia in 1792, never to return. They had no way of knowing, of course, how it would all end. But the breathtaking effrontery of their claims set in motion events of fateful consequence, touching off a half-century of trade and diplomatic rivalry, a flood of Euroamerican settlement, and the displacement and virtual destruction of the immemorial inhabitants of what the contestants would come to call the Oregon Country." -from THE TIDE OF EMPIRE

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471377910
• ISBN13: 9780471377917
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Length: 386 Pages
• Weight: 1.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Exceptional!

This story of the Oregon Country has been told so many times, what could be added to enhance it? Try enthusiasm and style. This work is so well written as to be jaw dropping. Whether you are an accomplished historian or someone with a casual interest, this history of the Pacific Northwest will please. While there is nothing new here Golay covers the waterfront. You meet the usual cast of characters, the Chinook Indians, John Jacob Astor, the Mountain Men, John McLoughlin, Senator Thomas Hart Benson, the Whitmans, Charles Wilkes, Jedediah Smith, Charles Fremont, etc., etc. Michael Golay omits no one. He covers the builders and the destroyers from the traders, trappers, explorers, and missionaries who withstood seemingly insurmountable odds to seize the Pacific Northwest for the United States to the economic interests such as the American Fur Company and the Northwest Company that provided employment and competing political agendas. A compellingly told, fast paced account of exploration and adventure, Golay covers a half century of diplomatic rivalry, a flood of transcontinental Euro American settlement and the breathtaking impudence of their claims.