Boone: A Biography

BOONE was a fascinating read, and offered many things I look for in a great biography: insight, understanding of why the subject is worth knowing, human perspective, and historical perspective, all in a narrative that flows like a good story. Robert Morgan, more known for his fiction, has accomplished much of this, though I dropped the fifth star because it needed some additional editing to remove a fair amount of unnecessary repetition and to improve the flow in a few places where the narrative [...]

Boone is a fantastic biography of an interesting early American. It is thorough and great at veering the reader away from the mythical "coonskin cap wearing baaar killer." However, sometimes it's cumbersome in details. While interesting, this biography takes a patient reader in my opinion.I'm a Kentucky girl and loved all the great details about my state. Mr. Morgan uses familiar landmarks and accurate depictions of the Bluegrass State. Having had school field trips and long weekend visits to ma [...]

What strikes me as the greatest accomplishment of Robert Morgan in this biography of Daniel Boone is stripping away the myth and describing the person. Boone himself was a complex figure. He was a great success as a trapper and explorer. He routinely failed as a businessman and land speculator. He was lucky and he made his own luck. Despite being so well known to Americans, he died in Missouri at 86 and was pretty much broke. His story was such that he was mentioned in the works of poets and wri [...]

I'm not sure what I was expecting from a biography of Daniel Boone, but I never got too close. The author argued, perhaps correctly, that Boone is a sort of Rorschach of the American psyche, and will always be mysterious, but it also feels like he didn't even really try.Honestly, too, I had a hard time not being overly distracted by the narrator. His mouth and the English language are apparently on the outs, and fought a lot during the reading. He attacked sounds and they fought back. Further, h [...]

This wasn't bad, though it could have been a hundred pages shorter. I wanted to read it because Boone's lifespan matches up pretty closely to the era that I am studying, but he was in Kentucky and Missouri, rather than Maine/Canada. So my people went one way and he went the other. It got me thinking about options in early America - where did people see opportunity? Why move to Kentucky, where you might very well get killed by Indians, when you could move to Canada, where you were much less likel [...]

Separating fact from fiction in writing a biography of an iconic figure like Boone is a major challenge and Morgan is to be commended for this effort. It’s unfortunate the several efforts Boone made to leave a personal account of his life were lost due to accidents and misadventures and later biographers were forced to rely on written records that may have been biased or based on hearsay.Morgan’s research clears up many of the false assertions about Boone and gives us a closer look at the re [...]

Liked the book. Thanks to the tv show I thought Dan'l Boone wore a coonskin cap and wandered around exploring the frontier and saving settler's lives. This book gave me a much better and more detailed account of Daniel Boone and his life; I realized that there is a man behind the legend who struggled with much of the same things people do today. I found it kind of sad actually; that a man who so loved the wilderness of Kentucky but lived through the disappearance of wildlife as well as the land [...]

Having grown up on the Disney t.v. show, Daniel Boone, I appreciated being disabused of the fantasy ideas I had absorbed as a child about this man. This book was so interesting not only about Daniel's life but also about the wilderness of Can tuck ee (Kentucky) and the Shawnee Indians. It seems like you can almost reach out and touch the time and place at one moment. And in the next moment you can't help feeling sad that this world is gone. The wilderness, the wild animals, the native American c [...]

Morgan goes back and forth in this book. He is at his best when he gets caught up in the amazing story of Daniel Boone. He portrays Boone with flair and captures the fascination and passion of a great explorer, pioneer and icon. At times, however, he gets distracted by details provided by other biographers, Morgan's own pet fascinations (often information that should have been consigned to footnotes) or the impact of Boone's story on later literature including Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Byron an [...]

Everybody knows who Daniel Boone is from the 60s TV show and the movies. Boone had a particular fascination for me because one of my distant relatives had an adventure with him back in the early days of the country. But who was Daniel Boone? This biography provides insight into the life of the explorer and woodsman who helped settle the areas now known as Kentucky, W. Virginia, and Arkansas. From an early age Boone knew how to hunt, trap, and live off the land. His explorations into the wilds of [...]

Being a Son of the Bluegrass, I felt it almost essential to better understand the life and times of the man most responsible for opening the Dark and Bloody Ground to settlement from the eastern colonies. Boone was a man of contradictions and a man of his times but Kentucky would not be Kentucky without him.

Well written by a novelist. A comprehensive well documented bio. I especially appreciated extensive coverage of his son in law Flanders Callaway, my first cousin, 7 generations removed.Bought at the Bookworm, a grand used bookstore in Boulder, CO.

I have a DVD Talk community member to thank for reading Boone: A Biography. I have seen, time and again, that Lateralus is an avid reader of history and so when he declared this work on one of my childhood heroes the best book he'd read in two years I knew I had to read it. The moment I fell in love with this book came when I pictured Boone, the only living soul living in Kentucky, camped out at night reading Gulliver's Travels and the Holy Bible. What wondrous times those must have been, for a [...]

Great biography! I learned a lot about my home state and our great country!

“Forget the coonskin cap; he never wore one. Daniel Boone thought coonskin caps uncouth, heavy, and uncomfortable. He always wore a beaver felt hat to protect him from sun and rain. The coonskin-topped Boone is the image from Hollywood and television. In fact, much that the public thinks it knows about Boone is fiction.”A couple of months ago I was reading a collection of pioneer stories from The Salem Democrat compiled in a book called Pioneer Pickings. In the book, were stories of Micajah [...]

When I was a child, my most cherished hero was Daniel Boone. I revered him long before the TV show starring Fess Parker appeared, though once it did, I refused to miss an episode. Why a young girl in the 1960's found ol' DB fascinating, I have no idea; call it genetic memory, as some of my forebears were his contemporaries in 18th century frontier Kentucky. At any rate, I was fascinated, and between the ages of 10 and 14, I read every single biography of Boone I could find in our local library, [...]

This book was one of the best biographies I've read in awhile, a real step forward in American history. Morgan applies Daniel Richter's "Facing Eastward From Indian Country" to Daniel Boone. The years of the legend's life stretch from the heady days of the French and Indian War to the time of the Missouri Crisis and Compromise. Yet Boone knew little, or only until after the fact, about the earth-shattering events of the American Revolution, Constitutional Convention, and the rise of Thomas Jeffe [...]

Boone was born a Quaker in Pennsylvania. An accomplished hunter and woodman, a natural leader people followed to settle the frontier of Kentucky during 1770’s. Boone developed roads into Kentucky through the famous Cumberland Gap; hunted and trapped; and surveyed the land later in his career. At this time, panthers roamed the cane breaks of Kentucky and buffalos could be found at the salt licks. Ironically, the avid outdoorsmen Boone leading settlers into the area destroyed the aspects of Kent [...]

Outstanding and well written. More than a biography of Daniel Boone. The author has done a great job separating the myth from the man and helping the reader to understand how Boone became a legend. The story of Boone cannot be written without including history of the exodus from Great Britain to the New World; how people like the Quakers were seeking religious freedom and how that impacted their communities as well as their moral codes; westward expansion from Virginia to Kentucky to Missouri an [...]

I debated whether or not I should read/listen to this as reviews on amazon were mixed, from boring & dull to fantastic! But I decided to give it a shot because I'm looking for books that my husband and son would be interested in and thought some of these early "mountain men" stories would be in their realm of interest.After about the first hour and a half of listening I was in the boring & dull category, but decided to stick with it a little longer. Now that I've finished it, I'm far fro [...]

Boone is now familiar. I knew nothing of him or his life prior to reading this biography. Other than his constant plague of debt, he was a great example of what a man should be. He's the guy you'd want telling stories around a campfire.The author gives great comments: p. 109 "In his midthirties a man either reaches out toward risk and glory or stays within the routines of the expected ordinary. It is the age when men leave safe homes and jobs and go on voyages, odysseys, perform transforming sac [...]

Boone adds to the the glut of literature on the frontiersman, but not for every reader. Personally, I found some of the information repetitious, overly romanticized (it's D. Boone, ok)and a bit fragmented.Daniel has been part of my life for as long as I can remember, and then some. His brother Squire, intersects my family line on the Boggs side, so I am somewhat biased at times. My childhood was filled with Boone thanks to living in southern Ohio and having Kentucky roots; add to that, my images [...]

"Boone: A biography" by Robert Morgan - Enjoyed the book but not a keeper. The author was bias and loved his subject too much which is obvious of how he viewed Boone as a wonderer and excused his actions. I was always curious about Boone simply b/c as kids my older brother had a fake raccoon hat and he would proclaim to be Boone when he was not Davy Crockett and I wondered what Boone was all about. The things that I learned were that Boone used trapping beaver as a justification to escape his re [...]

An interesting read, but ultimately one that's too long to sustain descriptions and a brand of language that quickly become repetitious.Morgan's first non-fiction text showcases his talent with words and legitimacy as a writer of fiction and prose. Daniel Boone is a remarkable subject to explore and the task of separating truth from the numerous legends is truly daunting. However, by including what feels like all of the legends, Morgan often overloads the reader with information and then adds hi [...]

Probably closer to 3.5 stars than 3, this is an interesting biography of Daniel Boone that does a good job of portraying life on the frontier during the late 18th century.The good:-You get a real feel for frontier life-For the most part sticks to factual evidence (see The bad)-Does an excellent job with several incidents in sorting out the various biographical takes on themThe bad:-Waxes way too lyrical at some moments, especially when Boone is off by himself. I understand that it's part of his [...]

Detailed research. Boy was I ignorant of Dan'l Boone, even though I now realize our paths crossed in a number of ways. Sometimes the author's desire to tie Boone to the poetry and impact of the Romantics and Transcendentalists was a little forced feeling, but it is probably hard to overstate the impact this forerunner had on those movements.I hadn't realized Daniel's life in NC was so extensive. He even served at Fort Dobbs--the pre-Revolutionary War outpost that "I" served at in a high school d [...]

Still in it. Boone is an ancestor of mine. My great-grandmother was a Boone, but I've known nothing of his life other than what TV and movies have (I have seen) mislead us to believe. And as Morgan states early on, Boone, while both a success and a failure (depending on how you define the terms), was always true to himself. In addition to bold explorations of North America, he broke down cultural barriers as well. Morgan's detailed research is clearly evident, almost to a fault, as some depth of [...]

This book was recommended to me by several people, won some awards, and made the bestsellers list. I put it down several times without regret and generally found it a disappointment. It covers the entire life of Daniel Boone and makes an earnest attempt to dispel the myths and misunderstandings about him (most of which I think stem from people confusing Daniel Boone with Davy Crockett). As far as telling a complete and fair biography of Boone I think this book mostly succeeds, and it also does a [...]

Rating 4.25Morgan tackles the man the the myth the legend of Daniel Boone. Morgan tries to show us all sides of Boone, from a man who loves to hunt, to the man who loved the wilderness. The man who fought Native Americans to the man who was loved by Native Americans. Morgan talks of how some people regardless of how much we really know about them through letters, accounts, or biographies we are still left feeling like we do no know about a person. Boone is one of those people. A life of disagree [...]

So you thought you knew Daniel Boone? The author does an effective job of debunking many myths of the frontiersman. There was no coonskin cap. He wore a brimmed hat to keep the sun and rain off his face. He was somewhat of an pacifist. Though his early passion was for the open, unsettled land of Kentucky, he lived in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Missouri. He was rarely home with his family and rarely out of debt. And while it is hard to question his heroism, there were many who questioned h [...]