A Wilderness So Immense : The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America

Rating:
Summary: An absorbing account
Review: I admit I decided to read this book because I thought it only fitting in this bicentennial year of the Louisiana Purchase to do so, and that I was struck by the felicitous title (on a par with other titles which stand out in my memory (They Shoot Horses, Don't They? [read 9 Apr 1952], Right Hand, Glove Uplifted [read Jun 30, 1983], I Came Out of the 18th Century [read 3 Feb 1979], I, Too, Have Lived in Arcadia [read 26 Feb 1987], Keep the Aspidistra Flying [read 2 Apr 2002], and What Me Befell [read 24 Feb 2001]). But it turned out to be a super-interesting book, especially when it got to the actual events leading up to the negotiations with Napolean. One stands in awe of the superlative job which Livingston did in conditioning Napoleon to be willing to sell and the suspense which attends the negotiations is surprising (since one know that it all turns out for the best, because here I am living in Iowa and an American citizen). The research is impeccable, and the footnotes ample, and one is even favored with the text of Pinckney's treaty of 1795 as well as of the Treaty to buy Louisiana. (In the next edition the statement on page 251 that Napoleon died on Elba should be corrected, as well as the statement on page 272 saying Livingston met Talleyrand on "January" 12 instead of April 12, 1803.) The book is full of interesting tidbits, such as telling what happened to Shays of Shays' Rebellion fame, and to Toussaint after the promise to him was broken and he was arrested. This is history which cannot fail to be appreciated when read.

Rating:
Summary: Lost in the Wilderness
Review: Jon Kukla certainly provides a vast account of events leading up the Louisiana Purchase, but seems to get lost in the Wilderness in the process. He offers interesting character sketches and numerous anecdotal references, but it takes him most of the book to get down to the nitty gritty of the purchase itself.

He tries to hook readers into his account by providing a very questionable view of Jefferson in Paris in the opening chapter. He assumes a pedophiliac relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings. He plays this against an account of the building of the Richmond capitol to illustrate how Jefferson was not afraid to use subterfuge to get anything he wanted. Kukla also plays Jefferson off against Monroe, who he seems to have more admiration for.

Kukla also has an obsession for the early secessionist drives in the fledgling US, and how the Spanish played off these sectional differences, particularly in regard to the nefarious James Wilkinson. I think Kukla made too much of these secessionist drives. Mostly it was a battle between the Federalists and the Republicans, not deep-seated sectional differences. Of course these differences would ultimately lead to the Civil War, but at this point the Union was in its formative stages, and the new territories vied for statehood not independence.

I got the impression that Kukla was trying to build a picture of the early United States and its place in the world moreso than illuminate readers on the Louisiana Purchase. There is an awful lot of information on the Spanish-French-American connection, but so little on the strong tie between the US and Britain. He focuses heavily on the Virginians, and presents the Northeastern contingent as incidental characters with the exception of Robert Livingston, who set much of the groundwork for the Purchase.

Kukla spends an inordinate amount of time on the French Revolution, as a means of introducing us to Napoleon and Tallyrand. He also uses the revolution as the basis for the Haitian Independence drive which so greatly consternated Virginia planters. Kukla does provide a pretty good account of Citizen Genet and his attempt to form a militia to take New Orleans prior to the repossession of the territory by Napoleon.

It seems Kukla is trying to impress readers with his universal knowledge of events rather than focus on the more salient aspects of the Louisiana Purchase. All in all, it is an entertaining account of events but one that seems to lose its bearings in a wilderness so immense.

Rating:
Summary: Lost in the Wilderness
Review: Jon Kukla certainly provides a vast account of events leading up the Louisiana Purchase, but seems to get lost in the Wilderness in the process. He offers interesting character sketches and numerous anecdotal references, but it takes him most of the book to get down to the nitty gritty of the purchase itself.

He tries to hook readers into his account by providing a very questionable view of Jefferson in Paris in the opening chapter. He assumes a pedophiliac relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings. He plays this against an account of the building of the Richmond capitol to illustrate how Jefferson was not afraid to use subterfuge to get anything he wanted. Kukla also plays Jefferson off against Monroe, who he seems to have more admiration for.

Kukla also has an obsession for the early secessionist drives in the fledgling US, and how the Spanish played off these sectional differences, particularly in regard to the nefarious James Wilkinson. I think Kukla made too much of these secessionist drives. Mostly it was a battle between the Federalists and the Republicans, not deep-seated sectional differences. Of course these differences would ultimately lead to the Civil War, but at this point the Union was in its formative stages, and the new territories vied for statehood not independence.

I got the impression that Kukla was trying to build a picture of the early United States and its place in the world moreso than illuminate readers on the Louisiana Purchase. There is an awful lot of information on the Spanish-French-American connection, but so little on the strong tie between the US and Britain. He focuses heavily on the Virginians, and presents the Northeastern contingent as incidental characters with the exception of Robert Livingston, who set much of the groundwork for the Purchase.

Kukla spends an inordinate amount of time on the French Revolution, as a means of introducing us to Napoleon and Tallyrand. He also uses the revolution as the basis for the Haitian Independence drive which so greatly consternated Virginia planters. Kukla does provide a pretty good account of Citizen Genet and his attempt to form a militia to take New Orleans prior to the repossession of the territory by Napoleon.

It seems Kukla is trying to impress readers with his universal knowledge of events rather than focus on the more salient aspects of the Louisiana Purchase. All in all, it is an entertaining account of events but one that seems to lose its bearings in a wilderness so immense.

Rating:
Summary: Highly Relevant and Thought Provoking
Review: What I learned about the Louisiana Purchase in school was pretty cut-and-dried: A bunch of very statesmanlike men wearing powdered wigs made an incredible real estate deal that more than doubled the size of the United States and enabled Manifest Destiny to happen, usually within the next five pages.

Jon Kukla did us all a service by sitting down and asking what the Louisiana Purchase actually meant to the North, the South, and the burgeoning Western Territories, both then, in the more distant future, and even now.

In 1803, New Orleans was a Caribbean port with a large population of free mulattoes, Creoles, French, and Spanish -- not to mention a sprinkling of American traders. It was like nothing that the original Thirteen Colonies ever saw, and it was but a foretaste of the rampant multiculturalism that has become a dominant feature of our lives.

Did you know that the first impulse to secession was not in the South, but in Massachusetts? The "Essex Junto," dating as far back as 1786, allowed itself to be influenced by Spain for purely regional benefits. As late as the Hartford Convention in 1815, the threat of secession was primarily a Yankee threat; only later did the South adopt it.

Jefferson, Livingston, and Monroe tread on new ground in cutting the deal: There was nothing in the new Constitution to allow them such powers, nor was there anything that expressly forbade it. And no sooner was the deal made than the United States began to face new problems, such as the expansion of slavery in the new territories. It was the Purchase that led in an almost direct line to the Missouri Compromise of 1820; and from there, to the Dred Scott Decision; and from there to the horrors of the War Between the States.

Kukla's book can be read on several levels. I read it as an exciting tale of diplomacy between the United States, Spain, and France spanning twenty years. As a work of scholarship, it contains extensive but unobtrusive endnotes, maps, and appendices containing the texts of the 1795 treaty with Spain, the Louisiana Purchase Treaty and Conventions, and some draft amendments to the Constitution proposed by Jefferson in 1803 to legitimize the Purchase.

I did not expect much from this book at first, but Kukla was so successful in working in threads and themes that continue to this day, that the book is highly relevant and thought provoking. It is odd to call a book about diplomacy gripping, but any tale that weaves together Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, Toussaint L'Ouverture (the Black Haitian revolutionary), Talleyrand, and Napoleon Bonaparte so well can be described in no other way.