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Lewis & Clark - Abridged

The Journey of the Corps of Discovery

by Dayton Duncan & Ken Burns

Length 3 hours 56 minutes

Language English

Narrators Ken Burns & Adam Arkin

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Summary
About the authors
About the narrators

The companion volume to Ken Burns's PBS documentary film, with more than 150 illustrations, most in full color.

In the spring of 1804, at the behest of President oThomas Jefferson, a party of explorers called the Corps of oDiscovery crossed the Mississippi River and started up the Missouri, heading west into the newly acquired Louisiana Territory.

The expedition, led by two remarkable and utterly different commanders--the brilliant but troubled Meriwether Lewis and his trustworthy, gregarious friend William Clark--was to be the United States' first exploration into unknown spaces. The unlikely crew came from every corner of the young nation: soldiers from New Hampshire and Pennsylvania and Kentucky, French Canadian boatmen, several sons of white fathers and Indian mothers, a slave named York, and eventually a Shoshone Indian woman, Sacagawea, who brought along her infant son.

Together they would cross the continent, searching for the fabled Northwest Passage that had been the great dream of explorers since the time of Columbus. Along the way they would face incredible hardship, disappointment, and danger; record in their journals hundreds of animals and plants previously unknown to science; encounter a dizzying diversity of Indian cultures; and, most of all, share in one of America's most enduring adventures. Their story may have passed into national mythology, but never before has their experience been rendered as vividly, in words and pictures, as in this marvelous homage by Dayton Duncan.

Plentiful excerpts from the journals kept by the two captains and four enlisted men convey the raw emotions, turbulent spirits, and constant surprises of the explorers, who each day confronted the unknown with fresh eyes. An elegant preface by Ken Burns, as well as contributions from Stephen E. Ambrose, William Least Heat-Moon, and Erica Funkhouser, enlarge upon important threads in Duncan's narrative, demonstrating the continued potency of events that took place almost two centuries ago. And a wealth of paintings, photographs, journal sketches, maps, and film images from the PBS documentary lends this historic, nation-redefining milestone a vibrancy and immediacy to which no American will be immune.

Biography & Memoir History Nonfiction

Dayton Duncan was the writer and co-producer of The National Parks: America's Best Idea documentary produced by Ken Burns, and has also been involved for many years with other series directed by Burns including The Civil War, Horatio's Drive, Baseball, and Jazz. Duncan lives in Walpole, New Hampshire.

Ken Burns, the producer and director of numerous film series, including The War, founded his own documentary film company, Florentine Films, in 1976. Burns’s films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including 13 Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and two Oscar nominations; and in September 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Burns was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award. His landmark film The Civil War was the highest-rated series in the history of American public television. He lives in Walpole, New Hampshire.

Adam Arkin, born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1956, is an American director and stage actor, that works in both television and film. His father is the Oscar-winning actor Alan Arkin. Throughout his career, Adam Arkin has received various award nominations, including a Tony for best actor in 1991, three Emmy’s, four SAG Awards, and a DGA Award. He is known for his performances on shows, such as Chicago Hope and Sons of Anarchy.