The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey [Idioma Inglés] - Hardcover

"Rinker Buck has a gift most writers would kill for--when he sets out on an adventure, in this case a 2,000-mile covered wagon trip across the West, he takes you with him. Buck's lean prose, historical insight, and penetrating curiosity elevate "The Oregon Trail" into an instant classic that deserves a place on your bookshelf between Bryson and Horwitz. A master storyteller and dogged reporter, Buck gives substance to an unrelenting wanderlust that is the envy of anyone who has ever dreamed of lighting out for the territories." --Bob Drury, coauthor of "The Heart of Everything That Is"

Praise for Flight of Passage:
"This is a funny, cocky gem of a book." "--The New Yorker"

"A terrific book . . . Huckleberry Finn meets The Spirit of St. Louis." --Henry Kisor, "The Chicago Sun-Times"

"My favorite book of the year . . . It reaches beyond its personal story to deal with the terrible beauty of families and with the larger world."" --"Bob Minzenheimer, "USA Today"

"Rinker Buck's "Flight of Passage" is an utterly captivating true-adventure tale and at the same time a winsomely told memoir of a teenager coming to terms with members of his family. I found it absolutely irresistible." --John Berendt

"This is more than a flying adventure--it is also a warm, affectionate account of an unusual family, with characters presented as if they were created by a master novelist." --Jack Elliot, "The Newark Star-Ledger"

"An entertaining and enlightening account of one of America's most legendary migrations. Even readers who don't know a horse from a mule will find themselves swept up in this inspiring and masterful tale of perseverance and the pioneer spirit."
--Publishers Weekly"

"This smart, endearing book is not just about a picaresque and probably ill-advised adventure; it's a story about "us"--who we are and how we came to be that way. As he makes his two thousand-mile pilgrimage by cussed mule across the dusty continent, Rinker Buck finds his way deep into our nation's DNA."
--Hampton Sides, author of "Blood and Thunder" and "Americana"

"How lucky we are that Rinker Buck and his brother, as stubborn and endearing as the mules they drove, undertook this patently imprudent journey--so the rest of us could sit in our easy chairs and tag along for the wild and woolly ride. Along the way we learn a little about mule breeders, tongue relievers, cholera, cattle guards, and littering, 1850s style--and a lot about the enduring essence of the pioneer spirit. Part Laura Ingalls Wilder, part Jack Kerouac, "The Oregon Trail" is an idiosyncratic and irresistible addition to the canon of American road-trip literature."
--George Howe Colt, National Book Award finalist for "The Big House"

"Buck's lean prose, historical insight, and penetrating curiosity elevate "The Oregon Trail" into an instant classic that deserves a place on your bookshelf between Bryson and Horwitz. A master storyteller and dogged reporter, Buck gives substance to an unrelenting wanderlust that is the envy of anyone who has ever dreamed of lighting out for the territories."
--Bob Drury, coauthor of "The Heart of Everything That Is"

#1 New York Times Bestseller * #1 Indie Next Pick

“Absorbing...Winning...The many layers in The Oregon Trail are linked by Mr. Buck’s voice, which is alert and unpretentious in a manner that put me in mind of Bill Bryson’s comic tone in A Walk in the Woods.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

An epic account of traveling the length of the Oregon Trail the old-fashioned way—in a covered wagon with a team of mules, an audacious journey that hasn’t been attempted in a century—which also chronicles the rich history of the trail, the people who made the migration, and its significance to the country.

Spanning two thousand miles and traversing six states from Missouri to the Pacific coast, the Oregon Trail is the route that made America. In the fifteen years before the Civil War, when 400,000 pioneers used the trail to emigrate West—scholars still regard this as the largest land migration in history—it united the coasts, doubled the size of the country, and laid the groundwork for the railroads. Today, amazingly, the trail is all but forgotten.

Rinker Buck is no stranger to grand adventures. His first travel narrative, Flight of Passage, was hailed by The New Yorker as “a funny, cocky gem of a book,” and with The Oregon Trail he brings the most important route in American history back to glorious and vibrant life.

Traveling from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Baker City, Oregon, over the course of four months, Buck is accompanied by three cantankerous mules, his boisterous brother, Nick, and an “incurably filthy” Jack Russell terrier named Olive Oyl. Along the way, they dodge thunderstorms in Nebraska, chase runaway mules across the Wyoming plains, scout more than five hundred miles of nearly vanished trail on foot, cross the Rockies, and make desperate fifty-mile forced marches for water. The Buck brothers repair so many broken wheels and axels that they nearly reinvent the art of wagon travel itself. They also must reckon with the ghost of their father, an eccentric yet loveable dreamer whose memory inspired their journey across the plains and whose premature death, many years earlier, has haunted them both ever since.

But The Oregon Trail is much more than an epic adventure. It is also a lively and essential work of history that shatters the comforting myths about the trail years passed down by generations of Americans. Buck introduces readers to the largely forgotten roles played by trailblazing evangelists, friendly Indian tribes, female pioneers, bumbling U.S. Army cavalrymen, and the scam artists who flocked to the frontier to fleece the overland emigrants. Generous portions of the book are devoted to the history of old and appealing things like the mule and the wagon. We also learn how the trail accelerated American economic development. Most arresting, perhaps, are the stories of the pioneers themselves—ordinary families whose extraordinary courage and sacrifice made this country what it became.

At once a majestic journey across the West, a significant work of history, and a moving personal saga, The Oregon Trail draws readers into the journey of a lifetime. It is a wildly ambitious work of nonfiction from a true American original. It is a book with a heart as big as the country it crosses.