From the best-selling author of Leviathan comes this
sweeping narrative of one of America’s most historically
rich industries. As Henry Hudson sailed up the broad river
that would one day bear his name, he grew concerned that his
Dutch patrons would be disappointed in his failure to find
the fabled route to the Orient. What became immediately
apparent, however, from the Indians clad in deer skins and
“good furs” was that Hudson had discovered something just as
tantalizing.nnThe news of Hudson’s 1609 voyage to America
ignited a fierce competition to lay claim to this uncharted
continent, teeming with untapped natural resources. The
result was the creation of an American fur trade, which
fostered economic rivalries and fueled wars among the
European powers, and later between the United States and
Great Britain, as North America became a battleground for
colonization and imperial aspirations.nnIn Fur, Fortune,
and Empire, best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin chronicles
the rise and fall of the fur trade of old, when the rallying
cry was “get the furs while they last.” Beavers, sea otters,
and buffalos were slaughtered, used for their precious pelts
that were tailored into extravagant hats, coats, and sleigh
blankets. To read Fur, Fortune, and Empire then is to
understand how North America was explored, exploited, and
settled, while its native Indians were alternately enriched
and exploited by the trade. As Dolin demonstrates, fur,
both an economic elixir and an agent of destruction, became
inextricably linked to many key events in American history,
including the French and Indian War, the American
Revolution, and the War of 1812, as well as to the
relentless pull of Manifest Destiny and the opening of the
West.nnThis work provides an international cast beyond the
scope of any Hollywood epic, including Thomas Morton, the
rabble-rouser who infuriated the Pilgrims by trading guns
with the Indians; British explorer Captain James Cook, whose
discovery in the Pacific Northwest helped launch America’s
China trade; Thomas Jefferson who dreamed of expanding the
fur trade beyond the Mississippi; America’s first
multimillionaire John Jacob Astor, who built a fortune on a
foundation of fur; and intrepid mountain men such as Kit
Carson and Jedediah Smith, who sliced their way through an
awe inspiring and unforgiving landscape, leaving behind a
mythic legacy still resonates today.nnConcluding with the
virtual extinction of the buffalo in the late 1800s, Fur,
Fortune, and Empire is an epic history that brings to vivid
life three hundred years of the American experience,
conclusively demonstrating that the fur trade played a
seminal role in creating the nation we are today. 16 pages
of color and 16 pages of black-and-white illustrations
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