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Fortune's A River - The Collision of Empires in Northwest America (Paperback)
Loot Price: R257
Discovery Miles 2 570
You Save: R30
(10%)
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Fortune's A River - The Collision of Empires in Northwest America (Paperback)
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List price R287
Loot Price R257
Discovery Miles 2 570
You Save R30 (10%)
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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Winner of the John Lyman Book Award for best Canadian naval and
maritime history
Finalist for the Nereus Writers' Trust Non-fiction Award
Finalist for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize, BC Book Prize
Longlisted for the 2007 Victoria Butler Book Prize
Honourable Mention for the Canadian Nautical Research Society's
Keith Matthews Award
"Fortune's a River" is the most authoritative and readable account
to date of just how British Columbia became British and how Oregon,
Washington and Alaska became American. By the closing years of the
18th century, the stage was set for a major international
confrontation over the Northwest Coast. Imperial Russia was firmly
established in Alaska, Spain was extending its trade routes north
from Mexico, Captain James Cook had claimed Northwest America for
England and Captain Robert Gray had claimed the Columbia River
region for the United States. Open warfare between Spain and
England was narrowly averted during the Nootka Sound Controversy of
1789-1794, and again between Britain and the US in the War of 1812,
when a British warship seized American property in Oregon.
In "Fortune's a River," noted historian Barry Gough re-examines
this Imperial struggle for possession of the future British
Columbia and fully evokes its peculiar drama. It turned out the
great powers were reluctant conquerors in this area. Russia and
Spain withdrew of their own accord. Britain was in a position to
dominate, but couldn't be bothered. The US vaguely wished to
fulfill its manifest destiny by securing the Northwest Coast, but
it was not a priority. In the end the battle was carried on by
private enterprise and individuals of vision. Alexander Mackenzie
established an overland route to the coast and with his partners
Simon Fraser and David Thompson, set up a network of fur trading
forts south to Oregon. US president Thomas Jefferson countered by
sending out the Lewis and Clark expedition to strengthen American
claims and an American entrepreneur, John Jacob Astor, established
a lonely US outpost at Astoria. Gough examines each of the players
in this territorial drama, bringing them fully to life and vividly
recounting their hardships and struggles. "Fortune's a River" is a
major historical work that reads like a wild west adventure.
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