The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny - Softcover

Wallis, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1631494007 ISBN 13: 9781631494000

Publisher: Liveright, 2018

Synopsis

Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence
Finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award
A Publishers Weekly Holiday Guide History Pick

“A book so gripping it can scarcely be put down.... Superb.” ―New York Times Book Review

"WESTWARD HO! FOR OREGON AND CALIFORNIA!"

In the eerily warm spring of 1846, George Donner placed this advertisement in a local newspaper as he and a restless caravan prepared for what they hoped would be the most rewarding journey of a lifetime. But in eagerly pursuing what would a century later become known as the "American dream," this optimistic-yet-motley crew of emigrants was met with a chilling nightmare; in the following months, their jingoistic excitement would be replaced by desperate cries for help that would fall silent in the deadly snow-covered mountains of the Sierra Nevada.

We know these early pioneers as the Donner Party, a name that has elicited horror since the late 1840s. With The Best Land Under Heaven, Wallis has penned what critics agree is “destined to become the standard account” (Washington Post) of the notorious saga. Cutting through 160 years of myth-making, the “expert storyteller” (True West) compellingly recounts how the unlikely band of early pioneers met their fate. Interweaving information from hundreds of newly uncovered documents, Wallis illuminates how a combination of greed and recklessness led to one of America’s most calamitous and sensationalized catastrophes. The result is a “fascinating, horrifying, and inspiring” (Oklahoman) examination of the darkest side of Manifest Destiny.

50 illustrations

About this title

About the Author:

Michael Wallis, the best-selling author of Route 66 and Billy the Kid, has published eighteen books and won numerous honors and awards. He is a popular public speaker and a highly acclaimed voice actor. He lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Review:

Wallis has delved into an extraordinary mass of original material, documents, diaries, accounts and letters, as well as new sources apparently not available to previous authors, and produced not only a definitive account of the Donner tragedy, but also a book so gripping it can scarcely be put down. . . . Wallis has done a superb job sifting through lurid tabloid moralizing and unreliable accounts to explore the complex truths of human beings pushed to the absolute limits of existence. — Douglas Preston (New York Times Book Review)

The saga of the Donner Party is one of the most horrific and fascinating events in the history of the American West. A cautionary tale at the time, it becomes in Michael Wallis’s thorough and persuasive new telling, The Best Land Under Heaven, emblematic of the more shadowy aspects of Manifest Destiny. . . . [A] welcome update of a nightmarish tale. — Buzzy Jackson (Boston Globe)

[An] engaging account of the doomed journey . . . . Mr. Wallis tells the story well and paints interesting portraits of the characters. — David A. Price (Wall Street Journal)

An even-handed, briskly written history of the party, destined to become the standard account of this horrid chapter of American history. — Timothy R. Smith (Washington Post)

If you want the full, unvarnished, exceptionally researched and documented, day-by-day description of what happened, look no further . . . [Wallis] provides a study of the times and circumstances and pioneer mindset that it took for farmers and businessmen to decide to sell off their property, pack up their families and set off in search of something better beyond the next hill, over the horizon, past where the sun was last seen setting. . . . Fascinating, and horrifying, and inspiring. — Glen Seeber (The Oklahoman)

Michael Wallis takes readers on an adventure full of excitement, intrigue and harrowing results. . . Referencing myriad documents and histories, Wallis presents a well-written and interesting account of this terrible tragedy. — Mike Whitmer (Deseret News)

Adopting an empathetic approach bolstered by studious research and geographical contextualization, biographer Wallis reclaims the horrific story of the infamously ill-fated wagon train from the annals of sensationalism...The Donner Party’s struggles and determination continues to fascinate, and Wallis’s comprehensive account of bravery, luck, and failure illuminates the realities of westward expansion. — Publishers Weekly, starred review

Wallis offers a vivid new look at the ill-fated Donner Party . . . . Wallis’s use of primary sources, together with his dynamic writing style, turns a familiar retelling into a real page-turner. A welcome addition to all history collections. — Patricia Ann Owens (Library Journal, starred review)

Best-selling Wallis’ (David Crockett, 2011) account of their tragic and thoroughly avoidable trek is well-researched, detailed, and well-written. . . . Wallis recounts their bad decisions and sufferings as well as the heroic efforts to rescue them with sympathy and eloquence while placing them within the broader context of the pursuit of the ‘Manifest Destiny’ to expand across the continent. This is an excellent reexamination of an infamous saga. — Jay Freeman (Booklist)

Nobody tells the stories of American history better than Michael Wallis. He’s done it again with this superbly researched and written account of the Donner Party trip west toward glory and riches that ended in bizarre catastrophe. The Best Land Under Heaven will clarify the facts of that infamous event as well as captivate and entertain. There are few better reads than this. — Jim Lehrer

Michael Wallis has outdone himself in The Best Land Under Heaven by revisiting the sad wanderings of the doomed Donner Party. In elegant prose, Wallis reveals how the death song of Manifest Destiny had lured so many to irretrievably, and often tragically, alter not only the course of their own lives but that of America, too. — Larry McMurtry, author of Lonesome Dove

Mr. Wallis has succeeded for the first time in compiling all available pertinent historical facts into this book. It is a must-have for everyone wanting the true story of the most epic saga of survival during the westward movement. — William A. "Bill" Springer, Great grandson of Captain George Donner and the Curator of the Donner-Springer Family Collection

You cannot understand the settlement of the American West without understanding the facts and—tellingly—the myths of the tragic Donner Party of 1846. Michael Wallis has done a superb job sifting through the grumblings, resentments, and fatal delays of the wagon train that came to symbolize both the folly and grit of our westward expansion. Once I started, I could not put this account down. — Rinker Buck, best-selling author of The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey and Flight of Passage

About this edition

• Publisher: Liveright
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1631494007
• ISBN 13: 9781631494000
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496