Description: In life and in death, fame and glory eluded Zebulon Montgomery Pike (1779-1813). The ambitious young military officer and explorer, best known for a mountain peak that he neither scaled nor named, was destined to live in the shadows of more famous contemporaries--explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. This collection of thought-provoking essays rescues Pike from his undeserved obscurity. It does so by providing a nuanced assessment of Pike and his actions within the larger context of American imperial ambition in the time of Jefferson.
Brief description: Matthew L. Harris is Associate Professor of History at Colorado State University-Pueblo and coeditor of The Founding Fathers and the Debate over Religion in Revolutionary America: A History in Documents.
Review Quotes: "Stymied by his mountain, confused by western geography, captured by the Spaniards, Zebulon Pike has been the odd man out in Jeffersonian exploration history for two centuries now. This fine anthology of new essays about Pike and his circle should go far toward correcting our historical memory about that clarion moment when the Southwest first beckoned and Zebulon Pike became America's eyes."--Dan Flores, editor of Southern Counterpart to Lewis and Clark: The Freeman and Custis Expedition of 1806