American Bloods : The Untamed Dynasty That Shaped a Nation

Omtale

"American Bloods is an unflinching history of our nation . . . This is a breakout book for John Kaagthe natural extension of his genre-defining writing. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Leadership: In Turbulent Times"Kaag has a knack of stumbling upon treasures . . . The result is a thrilling and illuminating tale." John Banville, The New StatesmanA history of a family spanning centuries and continentsone that unfolds into a new portrait of America.The Bloods were one of Americas first and most expansive pioneer families. They explored and laid claim to the frontiersgeographic, political, intellectual, and spiritualthat would become the very core of the United States. John Kaags American Bloods is the account of a remarkable American family, of its participation in the making of a nation, and of how its members embodied the elusive ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. Inspired by the discovery of a mysterious manuscript in an old Massachusetts farmhouse, Kaag follows eight members of this family from the British Civil Wars in the seventeenth century through the founding of the colonies, the American Revolution, transcendentalism, the Industrial Revolution, the Civil War, and the rise of first-wave feminism, all the way to the beginning of the twentieth century.The Bloods were active participants in virtually every pivotal moment in American history, coming into contact with everyone from Emerson and Thoreau to John Brown, Frederick Douglass, Victoria Woodhull, and William James. The genealogy of the family tracks the ebb and flow of what Thoreau called wildness, an original untamed spirit that would recede in the making of America but would never be extinguished entirely. American Bloods is an enduring reminder of the risks and rewards that were taken in laying claim to the lands that would become the United States, and a composite portrait of America like no other.