In her provocative new book, Laurie Winn Carlson questions the larger
aims of the famed Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-1806 and sees it as
part of a broad range of schemes to wrest the American West from the
claims of established European powers. If American ships were already
plying the waters off the Pacific Northwest coast, why, Ms. Carlson
asks, was it necessary to send these two intrepid explorers
overland-except as a demonstration of American reach, and perhaps as a
ploy to tempt the Spanish to attack the expedition, thus provoking a war
with Spain in Florida and the West. Ms. Carlson views the Lewis and
Clark expedition as just one of several schemes to seize Western lands
from foreign powers and extend the new United States to the Pacific. And
behind the scenes in most all of them was the Virginian who actually
knew little about the region but under whose presidency the Louisiana
Purchase was completed, Thomas Jefferson. As Ms. Carlson notes,
Jefferson never traveled west, but he was involved to varying degrees
with men who did the exploring, organizing, and trekking at the Western
frontiers-men who left few papers for historians to pursue and have been
largely forgotten. Seduced by the West investigates the wide range of
players in this drama of intrigue and possibilities. Russia, Spain,
England, and France all tried to explore the West, and all for different
reasons. Only one nation succeeded, but as Ms. Carlson shows, it was not
always a simple task-or even an intended one.
