The Louisiana Purchase

May 26, 2003
Most high school students ought to remember learning a little something about the Louisiana Purchase, but this pivotal event in American history has rarely received sustained attention until this year, the event's bicentennial. Noted historian Fleming's brief study, an entry in Wiley's Turning Points series, presents an overstuffed look at the machinations that prompted Napoleon, famous for his conquests and colonial aspirations, to sell this vast piece of land for $15 million. Fleming's account highlights the importance of two leaders, Thomas Jefferson and Napoleon, along with their closest advisers, but the most memorable figures are the handful of diplomatic negotiators working behind the scenes, like Robert Livingston, the ambassador to France who originated the idea of buying the Louisiana territory, thereby easing the threat of war between the U.S. and France. The narrative weaves in several key events on both sides of the Atlantic, including the rampant yellow fever in Santo Domingo that substantially delayed and weakened Napoleon's troops, volatile conversations between Jefferson and his cabinet about whether the purchase required an amendment to the Constitution and Napoleon's near retraction of the sale. The story carries a surprising amount of drama, though Fleming (Liberty! The American Revolution) does little to play this up. His narrative is straightforward but cluttered with detail, showing more breadth than depth, and is intently focused on the "mix of destiny and individual energy and creativity" that supported one of the world's great diplomatic triumphs. (July 11)Forecast:This could do well in a bicentennial display with John Kukla's
A Wilderness So Immense and Charles Cerami's
Jefferson's Great Gamble, which offer fuller accounts of the purchase.

July 1, 2003
Fleming needs no introduction to history buffs, and in this concise new history of the Louisiana Purchase, the latest entry in Wiley's Turning Points series, he offers a treasury of forgotten details and new insights about this landmark deal that doubled the size of the country and opened the way to expansion west of the Mississippi. Conventional high-school civics classes traditionally presented a foresighted Thomas Jefferson driving a hard bargain to grab the new territories from the French for pennies on the dollar. Instead, Fleming reveals a less than glorious Jefferson, sending signals to Napoleon that we wouldn't mind at all if the French overthrew the black hero of Santo Domingo, Toussaint L'Ouverture. Fleming's presentation is compelling even in its brevity, thanks in large part to his capsule descriptions of the colorful cast of characters--not the least of which was the French foreign minister, Talleyrand, and the American envoy to Paris, Robert Livingston. An informative addition to the literature of this period.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)