As someone who has always appreciated the author's approach to history in his documentaries, I was really looking forward to this book, and it certainly didn't disappoint!

Hutton presents fascinating true stories in a fast-paced narrative style, meticulously distinguishing between myths and equally compelling facts. I particularly enjoyed how he focused on specific individuals like Daniel Boone and Sitting Bull to personalize historical events. While the first chapter was a bit slow, the rest of the book more than made up for it. I especially appreciated that the sections on battles and troop movements, which I often find tedious, were handled swiftly and efficiently.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it!

Thank you to Netgalley and Dutton for allowing me access to a advanced digital review copy of The Undiscovered Country by Paul Andrew Hutton.  I was very interested in this book because the American West is not a subject that I am very familiar with.  This book does a terrific job covering the overall history of the American West.  Especially delving into the people who were responsible for its annexation into the United States.  From Daniel Boone creating the Wilderness Road all the way to Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.  The author does an amazing job weaving the story from the American Frontiersman perspective to the Native American perspective as well giving the reader both sides of the American West story.  I could see this book being used as required reading in an American History class.  I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading about American History or the Wild West and give this book a 5 out of 5 stars.

The Undiscovered Country by Paul Andrew Hutton is a really interesting look at the American West. It tells the stories of famous people like Davy Crockett, Sitting Bull, and Buffalo Bill, showing both the exciting and the dark sides of westward expansion. Hutton does a good job of making history easy to follow, and it really makes you think about how complicated that time was.

I was drawn to the subtitle of this book as the American West was a special interest in my higher education. The author, Paul Andrew Hutton, utilizes biographies of Western figures, well-known to the lesser known (by typical US educational standards), to create a chronological timeline of the shaping of the American West. It is thoroughly researched and written in an approachable and entertaining manner that allows for a variety of readers to take interest.

Outside of the typical (read: White) agents of history, the author posits agency to the various Native American nations existing in the west– portraying them as active agents in their own affairs. Scholarship of the American West has increasingly moved to include Native nations as central characters in the history of the west, as well as the emergence of settler colonialism as a framework and lens to view the history of the United States. However, this phrase does not appear at all in this telling. In a roundabout way does the author breach this motive of the United States in their westward movement. In any case, Undiscovered Country does not mince the nuance of these characters and their contradictory actions towards Native nations.

Definitely a fun read for bringing all the biographies of “the Legends of the West”, but not altogether revolutionary, I would recommend this book as supplementary reading to someone with an introductory understanding of the West and United States history as a whole. But for someone with more advanced knowledge and interest in this subject, the author could be more in conversation with current views of the West (ie. settler colonialism previously mentioned).

“The Undiscovered Country: Triumph, Tragedy, and the Shaping of the American West” by Paul Andrew Hutton is a new book. The title comes from a quote from 'Hamlet,' the Shakespeare play, and then of course, much later on, 'Star Trek.' This book’s aim is to focus on westward expansion in America from American Revolution to about 1900. Right away, the author says that the title alludes to at what cost and destruction of Native Americans it came when building this new nation (America). Some of the highlights include Braddock’s Defeat in 1755 during the final ‘French and Indian War’ and then also explores the murder of Sitting Bull, as well as the Wounded Knee Massacre (1890). The figures that the book focuses on include Davy Crockett, Red Eagle, Kit Carson, and William “Buffalo Bill” Cody in addition to Kit Carson, are definitely ‘larger than life’ figures as the author mentions. And the author also gets into the romanticized thing of the ‘Wild West.’ It also explores the concept of Manifest Destiny. This is a hefty volume that a person really has to be quite interested in to keep going, otherwise it may be overwhelming for readers who want more of a general overview, or who are only interested in certain aspects but not all of what gets discussed here. It's a good book for academic libraries and public libraries as well.

The Undiscovered Country is a masterfully written and deeply engaging historical narrative that blends meticulous research with compelling storytelling. Paul Andrew Hutton brings the American frontier to life with vivid detail and unforgettable characters. His ability to weave together personal stories and broader historical themes makes this book both educational and emotionally resonant. Fans of American history will find much to admire here. Highly recommended!

While the subject matter may have been interesting to read, Paul Andrew Hutton’s “The Undiscovered Country” lacked a unique point of view, leaving me feeling like I was trudging through a textbook, rather than a history book. It is meticulously researched, but wasn’t presented in a wholly entertaining way. There’s a crowd for this book, but it left me wanting a bit more in the end.

This was an interesting read about the opening of the American West starting with the expansion beyond the Appalachian mountains. It is told through four main characters: Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Kit Carson and Buffalo Bill Cody. While there are several more detailed biographies about each, the author does a very good job of weaving the timelines together to present overview of the development of the west and pulls no punches in the process. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the development of the United States through it’s westward expansion.

I received a free Kindle copy of this book courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my nonfiction book review blog.

I requested this ARC from NetGalley because I read the blurb and felt there was some promise that it might be a true history. And I will give author Paul Andrew Hutton credit for the fact that he does not portray the American West in the rose-colored glasses historians have traditionally donned when describing the period.

But at 5% I nearly DNFed, disgusted with his inaccurate portrayal of the Iroquois and the Treaty of Lancaster. I ultimately did continue reading, but this brief paragraph colored my entire experience of the book because at best it displayed a failure on the author’s part to adequately research his subject matter.

Unfortunately, my hopes for a history that was at the very least balanced in its telling of the parts of Western history the author chose to highlight were never realized. To be fair, it does seem as though Hutton put some effort into trying to make at least some parts of the book reflect an accurate depiction of the indigenous people’s point of view, but it’s clear even without looking at the bibliography that sources used do not count amongst them those written by indigenous scholars (a quick subsequent review of the bibliography found only two sources written by indigenous authors), and this history that was supposed to be an accurate representation of the history of the West is still very much skewed to favor the white man.

The author ascribes thoughts and feelings to indigenous peoples that he garnered from sources written by white authors, who clearly themselves had no clue regarding social or cultural context amongst the indigenous tribes of what would become America, and who clearly didn’t bother to take a moment or two to examine how the actions of those who invaded tribal lands looked when viewed through an indigenous lens. Hutton has clearly given the latter at least a moment’s thought, and I will give him credit for that, but it apparently wasn’t enough to make him educate himself on the indigenous perspective.

I was looking forward to reading this book, and I found it a disappointment. I will be fully transparent and admit that I did not finish the book. I tried to, but I found myself getting angrier the further I read, and it became clear to me that there was no way that I would be able to be impartial when I found myself wincing every time the author used the word “Indian” to refer to an indigenous tribe or tribesman. Since he does so frequently, things went downhill rapidly. We don’t generally refer to ourselves as Indians unless we’re being ironic, and while it’s entirely possible the author does not know this, I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand I feel as though a thorough researcher would learn this and write the book with appropriate language. On the other hand, I wonder if perhaps by this point, I am so irritated with the author that I am not inclined to be forgiving.

The rating I’ve given here, I have given in an attempt to be fair, but I can’t say that I either enjoyed the book or would recommend it. To call yourself historian, it seems to me, is to assume a responsibility for doing better than this.

Disclosure: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley and am leaving a voluntary review.

My thanks to the author, Penguin Publishing Group, and NetGalley for an opportunity to review an ARC of this new book. I attest my review is my own unbiased work.

The Undiscovered Country is a nice addition to the vast literature that attempts to portray the founding of the American West. Author Paul Andrew Hutton takes on this challenge by focusing on 7 protagonists crucial to American Western History: Daniel Boone, Red Eagle, Davy Crockett, Mangas Coloradas, Kit Carson, Sitting Bull, and William “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Many readers will recognize names like Boone, Crockett, and Carson; the addition of the other four opens up areas of history that many of us have likely not read much about.

The research is first-rate; the writing crisp and engaging. The author takes history and nonfiction and turns it into compelling reading. If you are a fan of history, and want to learn more about how the West was founded, this is a must read for you.

I give the book 5 stars.

The story of a country in four lives is the basic premise of The Undiscovered Country by Paul Andrew Hutton. I really enjoyed Hutton's previous book, The Apache Wars, so I had high hopes for this one. Like many great sequels, this one is bigger and also better.

Hutton looks at the expansion of the U.S. from before the revolution to the end of the Wild West. He uses four people as the lenses to look through for each time period. You may have heard of Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Kit Caron, and Buffalo Bill before. I did have some worries that Hutton many end up too high-level by focusing on specific lives, but I was quite happy how fast paced the book felt without losing a tremendous amount of detail. Sure, the Apache Wars got their own book, but Hutton is able to pack a lot into a little.

This is a great book for someone who is not too well-versed in the people and time periods covered. It's just simply very good and worth a read.

(This book was provided as an advance reader copy by NetGalley and Dutton Books.)

I really liked this book as it told of people exploring our country and what they saw. It’s always interesting to me to read history through new eyes.