The Instant New York Times Besteller National Bestseller "[The] authors’ finest work to date." —Wall Street Journal The explosive true saga of the legendary figure Daniel Boone and the bloody struggle for America's frontier by two bestselling authors at the height of their writing power—Bob Drury and Tom Clavin. It is the mid-eighteenth century, and in the thirteen colonies founded by Great Britain, anxious colonists desperate to conquer and settle North America’s “First Frontier” beyond the Appalachian Mountains commence a series of bloody battles. These violent conflicts are waged against the Native American tribes whose lands they covet, the French, and the mother country itself in an American Revolution destined to reverberate around the world. This is the setting of Blood and Treasure, and the guide to this epic narrative is America’s first and arguably greatest pathfinder, Daniel Boone—not the coonskin cap-wearing caricature of popular culture but the flesh-and-blood frontiersman and Revolutionary War hero whose explorations into the forested frontier beyond the great mountains would become the stuff of legend. Now, thanks to painstaking research by two award-winning authors, the story of the brutal birth of the United States is told through the eyes of both the ordinary and larger-than-life men and women who witnessed it. This fast-paced and fiery narrative, fueled by contemporary diaries and journals, newspaper reports, and eyewitness accounts, is a stirring chronicle of the conflict over America’s “First Frontier” that places the reader at the center of this remarkable epoch and its gripping tales of courage and sacrifice.

This is a collection of first-hand accounts that illuminate life on America's trans-Appalachian frontier. The voices range from the legendary Daniel Boone (here, in its entirety, is Boone's autobiography) to a wide array of ordinary settlers, and many of the stories are published here for the first time. Also included are historical and analytical essays that give context to each story, and numerous maps and illustrations.

" The embodiment of the American hero, the man of action, the pathfinder, Daniel Boone represents the great adventure of his age—the westward movement of the American people. Daniel Boone: An American Life brings together over thirty years of research in an extraordinary biography of the quintessential pioneer. Based on primary sources, the book depicts Boone through the eyes of those who knew him and within the historical contexts of his eighty-six years. The story of Daniel Boone offers new insights into the turbulent birth and growth of the nation and demonstrates why the frontier forms such a significant part of the American experience.

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History for 1993 In the first and most reliable biography of Daniel Boone in more than fifty years, award-winning historian Faragher brilliantly portrays America's famous frontier hero. Drawing from popular narrative, the public record, scraps of documentation from Boone's own hand, and a treasure of reminiscence gathered by nineteenth-century antiquarians, Faragher uses the methods of new social history to create a portrait of the man and the times he helped shape. Blending themes from a much vitalized Western and frontier history with the words and ideas of ordinary people, Faragher has produced a book that will stand as the definitive life of Daniel Boone for decades to come, and one that illuminates the frontier world of Boone like no other.

“A rousing tale of frontier daring and ingenuity, better than legend on every front.” — Pulitzer Prize–winning author Stacy Schiff A Goodreads Most Anticipated Book In his first work of narrative nonfiction, Matthew Pearl, bestselling author of acclaimed novel The Dante Club, explores the little-known true story of the kidnapping of legendary pioneer Daniel Boone’s daughter and the dramatic aftermath that rippled across the nation. On a quiet midsummer day in 1776, weeks after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, thirteen-year-old Jemima Boone and her friends Betsy and Fanny Callaway disappear near the Kentucky settlement of Boonesboro, the echoes of their faraway screams lingering on the air. A Cherokee-Shawnee raiding party has taken the girls as the latest salvo in the blood feud between American Indians and the colonial settlers who have decimated native lands and resources. Hanging Maw, the raiders’ leader, recognizes one of the captives as Jemima Boone, daughter of Kentucky's most influential pioneers, and realizes she could be a valuable pawn in the battle to drive the colonists out of the contested Kentucky territory for good. With Daniel Boone and his posse in pursuit, Hanging Maw devises a plan that could ultimately bring greater peace both to the tribes and the colonists. But after the girls find clever ways to create a trail of clues, the raiding party is ambushed by Boone and the rescuers in a battle with reverberations that nobody could predict. As Matthew Pearl reveals, the exciting story of Jemima Boone’s kidnapping vividly illuminates the early days of America’s westward expansion, and the violent and tragic clashes across cultural lines that ensue. In this enthralling narrative in the tradition of Candice Millard and David Grann, Matthew Pearl unearths a forgotten and dramatic series of events from early in the Revolutionary War that opens a window into America’s transition from colony to nation, with the heavy moral costs incurred amid shocking new alliances and betrayals.

The new and substantially revised 2nd edition of In the Footsteps of Daniel Boone tells the life story of America's pioneer hero by putting his life on the landscape, taking the readers to 100 places spread across 11 states from Pennsylvania to Missouri and from Michigan to Florida (yes, Florida!) where they can see markers, monuments, plaques, historic homes, replica forts, and statues that commemorate events of his life. The second edition is a solid arm-chair read illustrated with 150 photographic images captured at historical reenactments during the last 20 years, with another 160 images and all the location information found in a 60-page appendix with additional commentary. The narrative is the immersive, historical storytelling that non-fiction readers want. The appendix provides the information history buffs want to see the sites for themselves. The first edition went out of print when the publisher retired in 2017. This new and greatly enhanced second edition becomes available in time for the 250th anniversary of Boone Trace in 2025. Market hunter, wilderness scout, frontier guide, master woodsman, expert marksman, militia leader, surveyor, land speculator, judge, sheriff, coroner, elected legislator, merchant, tavern keeper, prisoner of war, Spanish syndic, son, brother, husband, father-Daniel Boone led one of the fullest and most eventful lives in American history. Showcasing 100 sites stretching across 11 states, In the Footsteps of Daniel Boone takes readers to the places where Boone lived, hunted, fought, and dreamed of the next frontier. You'll find the sites where two of Boone's sons were slain by warriors, where he rescued his kidnapped daughter from Shawnee captors, where his brother was killed by Shawnees who mistook him for Boone, where he tricked a British governor, and where he was court-martialed on charges of treason. In David, Kentucky, you'll visit the hollow where Daniel Boone saw his first buffalo. At Fort Boonesborough State Park, you'll learn how his courage and cunning defeated a Shawnee siege. From Cumberland Gap, you can follow the 1775 Boone Trace which helped usher in a quarter-million settlers into Kentucky along the later Wilderness Road. And in Pennsylvania and Missouri, you'll see the homes where he was born into and departed this world-a thousand miles, 86 years, and a legendary life apart.