Empire of Shadows, George Black
Empire of Shadows, George Black
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Empire of Shadows
The Epic Story of Yellowstone

Author: George Black

Narrator: Jack de Golia

Unabridged: 16 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/21/2019

Synopsis

Empire of Shadows is the epic story of the conquest of Yellowstone, a landscape uninhabited, inaccessible and shrouded in myth in the aftermath of the Civil War. In a radical reinterpretation of the nineteenth century West, George Black casts Yellowstone's creation as the culmination of three interwoven strands of history—the passion for exploration, the violence of the Indian Wars and the "civilizing" of the frontier—and charts its course through the lives of those who sought to lay bare its mysteries: Lt. Gustavus Cheyney Doane, a gifted but tormented cavalryman known as "the man who invented Wonderland"; the ambitious former vigilante leader Nathaniel Langford; scientist Ferdinand Hayden, who brought photographer William Henry Jackson and painter Thomas Moran to Yellowstone; and General Phil Sheridan, Civil War hero and architect of the Indian Wars, who finally succeeded in having the new National Park placed under the protection of the U.S. Cavalry. George Black's Empire of Shadows is a groundbreaking historical account of the origins of America's majestic national landmark.

About George Black

George Black is the author of The Trout Pool Paradox and Casting a Spell. He is the executive editor of OnEarth magazine, a publication of the Natural Resources Defense Council. He lives in New York.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Carol on July 10, 2017

What a terrible beginning for a great park, the world's first national park. The first order of business was clearing out the Native Americans and creating the myth that Native Americans were too afraid of Yellowstone's thermal features to go there. The book starts well before the founding of Yellow......more

Goodreads review by Thomas on August 30, 2016

I have recently experienced backpacking through Yellowstone, entering the southern border after walking through the Wyoming's Wind River Range. I spent 5 nights camping there walking around Yellowstone Lake, eventually exiting at the original entrance above Mammoth Hot Springs near Gardiner, Montana......more

Goodreads review by Ruth on April 15, 2012

The first three words of this book are "Nathaniel Pitt Langford . . ." -- who is a distant ancestor of mine. I was aware that he was one of the first white people to see the area now known as Yellowstone National Park. This book is a well-written, very engaging account of that exploration, and I lea......more

Goodreads review by Ruchi on August 07, 2022

I picked this book up from Gardiner after Spending 5 days visiting the YNP. It is a great descriptor of the socio-economic a and the political environment during the creation of Yellowstone National Park. Highlighting how lobbying and self interest guides almost any venture and how Yellowstone align......more

Goodreads review by Paul on January 08, 2025

Really interesting read especially as we visited Yellowstone this summer for the first time. We visited Virginia City and a lot of Western Montana so this helped fill in the blank on a lot of the history of that part of the country. The fact that this park is so beautiful and still looks pristine ma......more

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