The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West (B&N Exclusive Edition)

Simon & Schuster. New. New Simon & Schuster, 2019 New David McCullough has twice received the Pulitzer Prize, for Truman and John Adams,and twice received the National Book Award, for The Path Between the Seas and Mornings on Horseback His other acclaimed books include The Johnstown Flood, TheGreat Bridge, Brave Companions, 1776, The Greater Journey, and The Wright Brothers He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award Visit DavidMcCulloughcom

As part of the Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain recognized the new United States of America, Britain ceded the land that comprised the immense Northwest Territory, a wilderness empire northwest of the Ohio River containing the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin A Massachusetts minister named Manasseh Cutler was instrumental in opening this vast territory to veterans of the Revolutionary War and their families for settlement Included in the Northwest Ordinance were three remarkable conditions: freedom of religion, free universal education, and most importantly, the prohibition of slavery In 1788 the first band of pioneers set out from New England for the Northwest Territory under the leadership of Revolutionary War veteran General Rufus Putnam They settled in what is now Marietta on the banks of the Ohio River

McCullough tells the story through five major characters: Cutler and Putnam; Cutler's son Ephraim; and two other men, one a carpenter turned architect, and the other a physician who became a prominent pioneer in American science They and their families created a town in a primeval wilderness, while coping with such frontier realities as floods, fires, wolves and bears, no roads or bridges, no guarantees of any sort, all the while negotiating a contentious and sometimes hostile relationship with the native people Like so many of McCullough's subjects, they let no obstacle deter or defeat them

Drawn in great part from a rare and all-but-unknown collection of diaries and letters by the key figures, The Pioneers is a uniquely American story of people whose ambition and courage led them to remarkable accomplishments This is a revelatory and quintessentially American story, written with David McCullough's signature narrative energy