Life on the Mississippi: An Epic American Adventure

This book tells the story of journalist Buck’s (The Oregon Trail; Flight of Passage) quest to sail a flatboat 2000 miles down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers from Pittsburgh to New Orleans with a varied crew and many helpers along the way. As the adventurous Buck writes, this four-month journey traced the inland water route often taken in the years between the American Revolution and Civil War. The narrative works as a memoir, a history treatise, and a travel adventure. The author comes to terms with his mother’s death on this journey, but he also places his traveling adventures into a broader historical framework of how flatboats epitomized frontier resilience and ingenuity. Simultaneously, he also explores modern politics and culture, reflects on economic realities both past and present, and considers both ugly and uplifting aspects of American history.