David Crockett: The Lion of the West

by Michael Wallis

Book Overview

His name was David Crockett. He never signed his name any other way, but popular culture transformed his memory into "Davy Crockett," and Hollywood gave him a raccoon hat he hardly ever wore. Best-selling historian Michael Wallis casts a fresh look at the frontiersman, storyteller, and politician behind these legendary stories. Born into a humble Tennessee family in 1786, Crockett never "killed him a b'ar" when he was only three. But he did cut a huge swath across early-nineteenth-century America--as a bear hunter, a frontier explorer, a soldier serving under Andrew Jackson, an unlikely congressman, and, finally, a martyr in his now-controversial death at the Alamo. Wallis's David Crockett is more than a riveting story. It is a revelatory, authoritative biography that separates fact from fiction, providing us with an extraordinary evocation of a true American hero and the rough-and-tumble times in which he lived.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393067580
• ISBN13: 9780393067583
• Release Date: May 2011
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.5" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Editorial marring of good story - after only 20 pages.

How can a book focused on the life and adventures of this great patriot, allow an early (page 20) geographical error to mar the narrative? Shame on all parties for letting Washington, DC, be identified as being "less than seventy miles NORTHWEST" of Winchester, VA. David Crockett, the frontiersman who knew his compass coordinates as well as anyone, would be aghast.