In adopting the look and the style and the tone of the beginning biographies and extending the text to ninety pages, the new American Pioneer series may be making too much of a bad thing: the result is informative and soporific, in equal parts. Naturally focusing on Clark's feat in capturing the frontier forts from the British, it indicates also the personal sacrifice this involved and the lingering slurs on his reputation. Strictly utilitarian; sound, bland and uncomely.