SOURCE: A review of Undaunted Courage, in Historian, Vol. 60, No. 1, Fall, 1997, pp. 123-24.

In the following review, Emmerich offers generally positive assessment of Undaunted Courage.

This work is the story of two magnificent obsessions. The first, as is obvious from the title, is the epic of love of exploration that drew Meriwether Lewis and Thomas Jefferson into the partnership that ultimately opened the trans-Mississippi West to European American settlement. The other obsession, revealed more clearly with the turn of each page, is that of the author. Captivated by Lewis and his remarkable journey, Ambrose has spent the last twenty years leading family, friends, and students down most of the same paths and waterways that the expedition followed. Every mile walked along the Lolo Trail, every riffle canoed on the Missouri River, and every starry night spent deep in the Bitteroot Mountains brought the author that much closer to...