Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival Audiobook

Quotes

• “Peter Stark’s Astoria picks up where the Lewis and Clark Expedition leaves off, providing a fascinating and sometimes terrifying window into the brutal and acquisitive essence of not only America but of the human condition. It’s also a great and…an ennobling tale of survival. Highly recommended.”

  — Nathaniel Philbrick, New York Times bestselling author of Bunker Hill

• “[A] harrowing historical tale of adventure and hardship.”

  — Parade

• “In Astoria, Peter Stark recounts the colony’s history as a fast-paced, enjoyable adventure tale.”

  — Wall Street Journal

• “Stark’s delightful narrative is proof that even though Astor didn’t leave the legacy he intended, his grand failure certainly deserves its own place in history.”

  — New York Times Book Review

• “Stark moves skillfully back and forth from one segment of the splintered expedition to another. He also raises a tantalizing question about the enterprise as a whole.”

  — Washington Post

• “[Descriptive] passages…make Stark’s fine book truly distinctive. They raise Astoria above the level of a well-done historical adventure and help the reader get into a scene and understand the context or see relationships between participants and between then and now.”

  — Chicago Tribune

• “Peter Stark’s Astoria is a vivid recreation of an era when the Pacific Northwest was a vast unexploited wilderness, with Astoria as its main American colony…Stark is particularly strong in describing the wilderness and its effects on human psychology.”

  — Seattle Times

• “Stark tells their grim story well…a well-written . . . account of John Jacob Astor’s attempt to found a commercial empire in the Pacific Northwest. It illuminates the cultural limits of the American approach to frontier expansion.”

  — Oregonian

• “The story of its founders is harshly inspiring, a deeply researched look into the irresistible drive to explore the unknown and the capacity of people to survive not only the elements but one another.”

  — Minneapolis Star Tribune

• “A valuable book…but more importantly for my perspective, it’s really good reading.”

  — NPR’s “Morning Edition”

• “A fast-paced, riveting account of exploration and settlement, suffering and survival, treachery and death. [Stark] recovers a remarkable piece of history: the story of America’s first colony on the continent’s West coast.”

  — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

• “A page-turning tale of ambition, greed, politics, survival, and loss.”

  — Publishers Weekly

• “Stark vividly writes of fur trader John Jacob Astor’s capitalist quest…[a] fascinating account…that never loses its focus.”

  — Library Journal

• “Author Peter Stark retraces the journey in spellbinding detail, making use of journals to get inside the minds of these explorers who set out just two years after Lewis and Clark successfully crossed the continent…Astoria brings to life a harrowing era of American exploration.”

  — BookPage

• “A thrilling true-adventure tale filled with unforgettable characters, clashes of culture, ambition, and physical hardships from starvation to Indian attacks to cruel weather. A breathtaking account of an expedition that changed the geography of a young nation and its place in global commerce and politics.”

  — Booklist