Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, (Audiobook) by Peter Stark, Michael Kramer

from Stbalbach

This is really good. It starts off slow in Germany with background about John Jacob Astor and then moves to New York with the immigrants idea for starting a colonial expedition to Oregon. Then the journey begins. Moving westward there is both a sea journey and an overland journey, complete with a...

from Castlelass

Non-fiction narrative of the journeys involved in the original settlement of Astoria, “the first American colony on the West Coast of North America, much in the way that Jamestown and Plymouth were the first British colonies on its East Coast.” Peter Stark relates John Jacob Astor's vision of bec...

from Katyefk

What amazing heroes these folks were to take on the challenge of setting up the fur trade routes in the western USA! It seems that every way they turned there was another crisis, calamity or weather situation to deal with. I really enjoyed reading this book as I live in Central Oregon and I know ...

from Shrike58

A popular account of a nearly forgotten epic of commercial empire building, the striking thing to me is the raw hubris of it all, as Astor's vision depended too much on men who were not as committed as him in the face of too many unknowns; never mind that it's hard to imagine that Astoria could h...

from dcunning11235

An interesting story, and one I'd never even heard of before. However, I'm not sure the narrative really "carried me on." It felt a bit flat in places, and the end come kind of suddenly and without any real sense of conclusion. But an piece of history that I'd otherwise be missing (and wouldn't h...