A surprising and sweeping history that reveals the fur trade to be the driving force behind conquest, colonization, and revolution in early America
Combining the epic saga of Hampton Sides's Blood and Thunder with the natural history of Mark Kurlansky's Cod, popular historian Alan Axelrod reveals the astonishingly vital role a small animal-the beaver-played in the creation of our nation. The author masterfully relays a story often neglected by conventional histories: how lust for fur trade riches moved monarchs and men to launch expeditions of discovery, finance massive corporate enterprises, and wage war. Deftly weaving cultural and military narratives, the author chronicles how Spanish, Dutch, French, English, and Native American tribes created and betrayed alliances based on trapping and trade disputes, producing a surprisingly complex series of loyalties that endured throughout the Revolution and beyond.
"Offers a unique take on our country's origins by exploring the bloody history of fur trading, an industry that affected not only fashion but the face of a nation....Thoroughly researched and lucidly composed."
Publishers Weekly
"In A Savage Empire Alan Axelrod does for the beaver what Mark Kurlansky accomplished in Cod and Salt. This is first-rate narrative history."
Thomas J. Craughwell, author of Stealing Lincoln's Body
