The Year of Decision, 1846

Over forty years after the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark’s expedition, this year marks the point at which men and women from the east began to travel westward and populate the land near the Pacific.

Bernardo DeVoto’s fascinating study of this movement fully captures this moment when Western frontier was first truly settled by adventurers and explorers. Immigrant trains spread across the breadth of the country and men and women aspired to make new lives for themselves in the west. Some of these made in through the treacherous passes, but others like the Donner Party ended in tragedy. DeVoto uncovers the famous adventurers and explorers who were instrumental in forging new paths westwards like Jim Bridger, Frances Parkman and Jim Clyman.

This brilliant book uncovers how through the course of the year and through a variety of different reasons the United States greatly expanded as areas that would become known as Texas, new Mexico, California, Oregon and Utah came under its sway.

Bernard DeVoto was a Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian of the American West. He was a lifelong champion of American Public lands and the conservation of public resources as well as an outspoken defender of civil liberties. His book The Year of Decision, 1846 was first published in 1942 and he passed away in 1955.