‘Undaunted Courage’ A Bestseller

When publisher Simon & Schuster decided last month to print 41,000 copies as the first edition of “Undaunted Courage,” author Stephen Ambrose knew a mistake was being made.

“I told them they could print twice that and it wouldn’t be enough,” said Ambrose, 60, on a recent visit to Fort Worth. “I was right, too. So far in just a couple of weeks, we’ve sold 200,000.”

This week, the book is No. 4 on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list.

Ambrose’s previous books, all studies of history, military leaders and/or politicians, have always sold briskly. But the crusty author was certain “Undaunted Courage,” his recounting of the Lewis and Clark expedition, would do especially well.

“That’s because now, more than ever has been the case, Americans want real heroes,” said Ambrose.

“We’re yearning for national unity and causes that bring us together instead of splitting us apart. Meriwether Lewis fits that need. He had serious flaws. All along that adventure, he was popping opium pills, he sometimes drank too much, and often in his life he engaged in land speculation. But he resonates because he’s a real person. What he and William Clark did for this country is almost beyond belief today, bringing the West and East together in a way that had never been done before.”

The Lewis and Clark expedition was the first successful attempt by the U.S. government to explore a route between St. Louis, then the furthest “civilized” outpost to the West, and the Pacific Ocean. Orchestrated by President Thomas Jefferson, the adventure had a plethora of purposes. Lewis, who before the journey served as an aide to Jefferson, was also enjoined to collect plants, study Indian tribes and report on previously unknown wildlife.

Ambrose’s previous books have usually focused on more modern historical figures and events (Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, the D-Day invasion of World War II), but he said he had wanted for more than 20 years to reintroduce readers to Lewis and his explorations.

“Problem was, I felt the story had been told pretty well already, and of course we already had Lewis’ journals from 1804, 1805 and so on,” Ambrose said. “But in the last couple of decades, there’s been a great deal of scholarship published about him and Clark, and so I felt I could put that together with a good, objective look at those political times and end up with a book that was worth reading.”

Ambrose chose to do some research on the same road Lewis and Clark traveled. Taking with him at different times his wife, five children and three grandchildren, the author made a series of trips that literally followed in the footsteps of the original expedition.

“There’s just no better way to understand the efforts they made,” Ambrose said. “With the Lewis journals, we know exactly where they were and when. So we’d follow along, and at night we’d have our campfire and sit around reading aloud from those journals about exactly where we were and where we’d been that day.”

Accordingly, “Undaunted Courage” crackles with the same gritty authenticity that distinguished previous Ambrose bestsellers such as “D-Day.” The warts of Lewis, whom Ambrose reveres much more than the plodding but honest Clark, are always in evidence. Even his dietary habits are engagingly represented. At one point on the trip, a scarcity of wild game forced the explorers to eat dog meat; afterward, when elk abounded, Lewis announced he still preferred dining on dog.

Lewis’ supporting cast, from Sacagawea to Jefferson, are colorfully represented by Ambrose. He also makes a conscious effort to represent the expedition from the Indian point of view as well as the white perspective.

“You have to do that to completely understand,” Ambrose said. “What kind of a dumb writer would leave (the Indian perspective) out? History is the story of what happened to people, to ALL people. Forget that, and you might as well forget trying to learn history at all. Everything has an effect on everything else.”

This is a philosophy Ambrose stresses to his history students at the University of New Orleans. Ambrose, who otherwise splits time between residences in Bay St. Louis, Miss., and Helena, Mont., said youngsters begin his classes by echoing a sadly recurrent theme.

“Those kids all come in saying, ‘God, I hate history!,”’ Ambrose said ruefully. “They’ve got to know it; they’ve got to learn it right. It’s been said more eloquently by others, but I try to explain to my classes that we can’t figure out where we’re going until we know where we’re at, and we can’t know where we’re at until we know where we’ve come from.”

As he does with his readers, Ambrose tries to engage his students by making history real to them, illuminating divergent cultures and points of view and then demonstrating how they eventually influence each other.

“When taught right or written right, history just about beats the hell out of any other subject,” Ambrose said. “Our modern entitlements didn’t come for free. We enjoy them all the more for appreciating the earlier sacrifices of others that made them possible.”