IMPERFECT UNION: How Jessie and John Fremont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity, and Helped Cause the Civil War

With rare detail Inskeep tells the story of a couple whose joint ambitions and talents intertwined with those of the nascent United States itself. Theirs is a surprisingly modern tale of ambition and fame, of social and technological disruption, and of divisive politics that foreshadowed our own. Illus.