What the book is about
There is no other book that you could see out there that is up to date and very much readable like the “A wilderness so immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the destiny of America.” Studying history has always been a hobby for a lot of people and this is basically why there are a lot of books about history that are being released every year too. It appears that this book has inspired a lot of lovers of history that it generated a great deal of influence simply because it was able to state how an originally small nation transformed as one of the toughest one in the world’s history.
This book basically revolves around the story of America whom in its early stage encountered a lot of challenges and difficulties. There are trials that tested the unity of its citizens as a whole nation. There were also tests that seemed to be designed to test the strength and integrity of the current president, to see whether he is really an effective one in terms of managing a still considered small country or otherwise.
One of the things that made this a significant one is perhaps the topic itself. Not everyone knows how America thrived and developed into a very powerful continent. Not so many people also know that America was once a small nation only, with a not so diverse ethnic and cultural groups residing on it. This paper is basically a review about the book “A wilderness so immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the destiny of America”. A basic background about what the book is all about was already given and by now, you should already have an idea about what the book was about and why the author even considered writing such and then submitting it to a publisher for publication and distribution.
Organization of Contents
You can easily judge whether a particular book, just like the one we are talking about right now, is organized, not so organized or probably worst, not organized at all. But why do we, readers, have to know the level of organization a particular book has? The answer is simple and it basically concerns time and dedication. If you are a busy person, would you still be able to read a book like this? Of course, you would prefer to do your other highly-prioritized task first before you proceed on reading a book like this even though you aren’t that sure about whether you will like it or not yet.
Each subsection coincides with the issue it has to respond to which is the issue about Americas doubling in size in the last so many years. Also, you could see in each paragraph that it contributes to the main topic and the main topics for each section, in turn, contributes to the justification of the title and the main idea of the whole book.
This is actually one of the most important things that readers have to consider whenever they look for possible books to read. You could simply start by testing out whether the thoughts are organized or not. If at some point you could not see any connection between the multiple statements, and if there is any form of conflict, you could say that the thoughts you may acquire from the book is not that organized.
Remember that books are supposed to educate people and not to confuse them. Once a book fails to achieve that fact, it couldn’t be called as an effective resource.
Book Genre
The book “A wilderness so immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the destiny of America” is an informative type of book. If you guys were already able to read at least more than a half of this book, regardless of the section or chapter, you could easily distinguish that it is a book about history, American history at that. If it’s a history book, one could expect to encounter answers to the different controversies that the small nation of America experienced. Overall, the book was able to achieve just that and therefore, it could be considered as an effective book falling under the history genre.
Comparison with other books
Louisiana Purchase was one of the most significant deals ever made by the US in the last bicentennial year and it is quite obvious that the said topic was one of the most crucial topics discussed in the book. If one is to compare this book with other history books that also tackles about the controversial Louisiana deals, it could be seen that “A wilderness so immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the destiny of America” focuses more on the scholarly side of the story.
Actually, the three authors of the book has quite different perspectives and approaches used throughout the text that generally, helped the readers get more enlightenment about what really happened during the allegedly conspired deal. Kukla, one of the authors for example, made a splendid approach by presenting ideas in a narrative form. However, he limited his date presentation up to the Atlantic only even though he was able to cater more issues regarding diplomacy and the different issues encountered by some of the most famous historical figures like Napoleon and his great aspiration for cash.
All in all, the book, when compared with other books provides its readers a variety even although we are only talking about a single text. This is a good thing because it means that the book has great structure even though it was able to present data about the Louisiana Purchase out of the box.
Issue on Slavery
If you were able to read the book, you may want to ask yourself how the book tackled the issue about slavery and its relationship or connection with the different outcomes that happened in the Louisiana deal. Slavery indeed has significant impacts about the Louisiana deal.
However, the issue of slavery and its relationship with the deal was only focused on the introductory part of the book. If you are looking to find answers about the whole of Louisiana deal through an analytic approach, you won’t really be able to achieve that goal here because the book focuses more on casual facts, although it could still be considered as a scholarly book because the almost all of the information were valid.
Problems encountered in the book
There is no doubt that this book could be a great addition to an individual’s library of history books. Also, casual readers may be the ones who could get the most out of their money buying this book because of the way explanations are presented. For the more academically-centered individuals, they may be annoyed by how some parts or even whole chapters of the book are presented.
Positive Points about the book
The book is generally engaging and many readers actually find it to be so because of the kind of liberated way data were presented. The twist here is that although the method used was out of the box, it never, in any way compromised the accuracy of information that the readers were able to extract. This was done through the historical buffs and the high level of historical detail inputted exhibited in the story.
Let’s look at how information about the French revolution was presented as an example. The book offers the readers different approach of learning about what had really happened during the great French revolution. The book first a thorough background about the specific event, which in our case is the French Revolution, and from that, the reader learns the relationship of different historical events.
Finally, after reading most or the whole part discussing the French revolution, the reader could finally have a strong grasp about the connection of the French revolution with other significant events in the history like the Louisiana deal for example.
Also, the book contained visual and other types of learning reinforcements that of course, influenced the reader’s grasp of the information in a positive way. It provided maps that the readers could use to determine how largely the boundaries of the United States expanded. Just a trivia from the book, the Louisiana deal was the deal that almost doubled the territory of the United States.
So the whole parch of land that you see on the map today is actually a result of that deal. The explanations found on the text could also date way back from 1795, the date when the treaty of Spain was made, and it was successfully referenced with endnotes and different appendices. These could be very important things especially for someone who is looking to find a history book as a reference for his paper.
Conclusion
Generally, a lot of people view this book as diplomacy-gripping because of the way how United States and other parties’ use of diplomacy influenced the events that followed. Up to this day, the book remains a relevant source of information too regarding the highly controversial Louisiana deal.
The book could however be improved by citing more references and by considering the method how the information is presented. The way information was presented was kind of awkward for some people because it is too liberated although it was still able to convince the readers about the truth that lies behind every fact. The author was able to do a skillful and a masterful work of providing the details about the controversies that engulfed the world’s largest real estate deal.
He focused on the way how as the Spanish empire focused on increasing its influence in the new world it became susceptible to the expansion plans of its American and European rivals. This is perhaps one of the greatest twists that you could find in the book because of the rivalry and the disputes for territory. This is actually the best ingredient that sparked war in the ancient times and it is surprising how diplomacy was able to prevent the same outcomes from happening again.
References
Kukla, J. (2003). A wilderness so immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the destiny of America.
Knopf. Print.
