The Explorer King: Adventure, Science, and the Great Diamond Hoax--Clarence King in the Old West Book PDF, ePub eBook

Join our eBook service for unlimited books & audiobooks. Get a free 7 day subscription! ↓↓↓↓↓


Book Descriptions:
In this, one of the year's most compelling biographies, Robert Wilson paints a brilliant portrait of Clarence King -- a scientist-explorer whose mountain-scaling, desert-crossing, river-fording, blizzard-surviving adventures helped create the new West of the nineteenth century.

A sort of Howard Hughes of the 1800s, Clarence King in his youth was an icon of the new America: a man of both action and intellect, who combined science and adventure with romanticism and charm. The Explorer King vividly depicts King's amazing feats and also uncovers the reasons for the shocking decline he suffered after his days on the American frontier.

The Yale-educated King went west in 1863 at age twenty-one as a geologist-explorer. During the next decade he scaled the highest peaks of the Sierra Nevada, published a popular book now considered a classic of adventure literature, initiated a groundbreaking land survey of the American West, and ultimately uncovered one of the greatest frauds of the century -- the Great Diamond Hoax, a discovery that made him an international celebrity at a time when they were few and far between.

Through King's own rollicking tales, some true, some embroidered, of scaling previously unclimbed mountain peaks, of surviving a monster blizzard near Yosemite, of escaping ambush and capture by Indians, of being chased on horseback for two days by angry bandits, Robert Wilson offers a powerful combination of adventure, history, and nature writing. He also provides the bigger picture of the West at this time, showing the ways in which the terrain of the western United States was measured and charted and mastered, and how science, politics, and business began to intersect and influence one another during this era. Ultimately, King himself would come to symbolize the collision of science and business, possibly the source of his downfall.

Fascinating and extensive, The Explorer King movingly portrays the America of the nineteenth century and the man who -- for better or worse -- typified the soul of the era.

The Explorer King: Adventure, Science, and the Great Diamond Hoax--Clarence King in the Old West by Robert Wilson

From reader reviews:

Gina Gregg:

The book The Explorer King: Adventure, Science, and the Great Diamond Hoax--Clarence King in the Old West can give more knowledge and information about everything you want. Why must we leave a good thing like a book The Explorer King: Adventure, Science, and the Great Diamond Hoax--Clarence King in the Old West? A few of you have a different opinion about publication. But one aim which book can give many facts for us. It is absolutely appropriate. Right now, try to closer with the book. Knowledge or data that you take for that, it is possible to give for each other; you are able to share all of these. Book The Explorer King: Adventure, Science, and the Great Diamond Hoax--Clarence King in the Old West has simple shape but the truth is know: it has great and massive function for you. You can seem the enormous world by available and read a guide. So it is very wonderful.

Sang Weems:

The actual book The Explorer King: Adventure, Science, and the Great Diamond Hoax--Clarence King in the Old West will bring one to the new experience of reading some sort of book. The author style to clarify the idea is very unique. In the event you try to find new book to see, this book very appropriate to you. The book The Explorer King: Adventure, Science, and the Great Diamond Hoax--Clarence King in the Old West is much recommended to you to study. You can also get the e-book from the official web site, so you can easier to read the book.

Jane Mansour:

The Explorer King: Adventure, Science, and the Great Diamond Hoax--Clarence King in the Old West can be one of your beginner books that are good idea. Many of us recommend that straight away because this guide has good vocabulary that will increase your knowledge in vocabulary, easy to understand, bit entertaining however delivering the information. The copy writer giving his/her effort to put every word into joy arrangement in writing The Explorer King: Adventure, Science, and the Great Diamond Hoax--Clarence King in the Old West yet doesn't forget the main position, giving the reader the hottest in addition to based confirm resource data that maybe you can be among it. This great information can easily drawn you into fresh stage of crucial considering.

Anthony Carter:

Do you like reading a e-book? Confuse to looking for your preferred book? Or your book had been rare? Why so many issue for the book? But just about any people feel that they enjoy with regard to reading. Some people likes reading through, not only science book but additionally novel and The Explorer King: Adventure, Science, and the Great Diamond Hoax--Clarence King in the Old West or perhaps others sources were given expertise for you. After you know how the fantastic a book, you feel would like to read more and more. Science e-book was created for teacher or maybe students especially. Those ebooks are helping them to bring their knowledge. In some other case, beside science publication, any other book likes The Explorer King: Adventure, Science, and the Great Diamond Hoax--Clarence King in the Old West to make your spare time considerably more colorful. Many types of book like this.