Winters is a freelance writer and editor. In the following essay, she commends Stephen Ambrose's Undaunted Courage for the succinctness of the account, "its rich detail and often entertaining tone," and its "compassionate and insightful study of Lewis' strengths and weaknesses."

When an aunt gave Stephen Ambrose a complete set of the journals of the explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Ambrose read them and was "entranced." The journals spurred him to begin twenty years of research, some of which involved books, and much of which involved retracing their journey-on foot, in a canoe, or on horses, with family and friends. Ambrose's personal experience of the land and the journey shines through Undaunted Courage, making it a "splendid retelling" of the original explorers' trek, according to a writer in Kirkus Reviews.

The book centers on the friendship between Thomas Jefferson and Meriwether Lewis, which was the catalyst...