John James Audubon came to America as a dapper eighteen-year-old eager
to make his fortune. He had a talent for drawing and an interest in
birds, and he would spend the next thirty-five years traveling to the
remotest regions of his new country-often alone and on foot-to render
his avian subjects on paper. The works of art he created gave the world
its idea of America. They gave America its idea of itself.
Here Richard Rhodes vividly depicts Audubon's life and career: his epic
wanderings; his quest to portray birds in a lifelike way; his long,
anguished separations from his adored wife; his ambivalent witness to
the vanishing of the wilderness. John James Audubon: The Making of an
American is a magnificent achievement.