About this item
Steve Inskeep tells the riveting story of John and Jessie Frmont, the husband and wife team who in the 1800s were instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States, and thus became America's first great political couple John Frmont grew up amid family tragedy and shame. Born out of wedlock in 1813, he went to work at age thirteen to help support his family in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a nobody. Yet by the 1840s, he rose to become one of the most acclaimed people of the age - known as a wilderness explorer, bestselling writer, gallant army officer, and latter-day conquistador, who in 1846 began the United States' takeover of California from Mexico. He was a celebrity who personified the country's westward expansion. Mountains, towns, ships, and streets were named after him.
About the Author
Steve Inskeep is co-host of Morning Edition, the most widely heard radio news program in the United States.Inskeep has traveled across the nation and around the world for NPR News, interviewing presidents, warlords, authors, and musicians, as well as those who aren't in the headlines -- from a steelworker in Ohio to a woman living in poverty in Tehran.In 2002 he first visited Karachi, Pakistan - the subject of his first book, "Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi." In the years since, his regular dispatches from visits to Pakistan have included an acclaimed radio series, "Along the Grand Trunk Road," reported with his NPR colleagues.Inskeep covered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2003, he received a National Headliner Award for investigating a military raid that went wrong in Afghanistan, and he has twice been part of the NPR News team that was awarded an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for its coverage of Iraq. He also shared a duPont award, with his colleague Michele Norris, for a groundbreaking series of talks about race during the 2008 Presidential campaign. A native of Carmel, Indiana, Inskeep is a 1990 graduate of Morehead State University in Kentucky.Inskeep's NPR biography:http://www.npr.org/people/4080709/steve-inskeep
