SEVEN TRAILS WEST

A fine narrative history of the various pathways that allowed Manifest Destiny (in all its dubious incarnations) to become a reality. From 1805 to 1869, from the Lewis and Clark expedition to the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Summit, a half-million people went west, and the country expanded by some 2,000 miles from the Mississippi to the Pacific. The Lewis and Clark expedition might not have found the Northwest Passage, but it did reinforce American geopolitical claims to the continental landmass, and it gave a hint of the commercial possibilities ripe for exploitation, first among them the fur trade. Explorers, fortune-seekers, but mostly just plain folk seeking a better life followed the trappers, beating their way along such routes as the Santa Fe Trail, 1,000 hot, dry miles through hostile territory (the Pawnee, Kiowa, and Comanche were none too thrilled by the pilgrims' progress); the often brutal Oregon-California Trail; and the Mormon Trail blazed by the Latter-day Saints. Then there were what Peters describes as ``trails of a new order that enabled speed of communication and transport'': first the Pony Express, then the transcontinental telegraph, a thin thread of wire stretching from New York City to San Francisco. The apex (or nadir, depending on your point of view) was reached with the transcontinental railroad irrevocably linking the country: ``From sea to sea, America was now one nation.'' The railroad was forced down the throats of Native Americans with Sherman's ugly Indian policy: ``The more we can kill this year, the less will have to be killed in the next war.'' Peters's vivid, anecdotal narrative of these routes illustrates how the frontier was shaped by contingency working within the context of explosive cultural processes. To this already admirable drama add superb graphic work- -archival photos, maps, contemporary photography, period paintings- -and you have an elegant, captivating package. (208 illustrations, 56 in color, 8 original maps)