This sweeping biography is the story of early America--its ideals, its promise, its romance, and its destiny. Novelist Morgan transforms a mythic American hero--a legend in his own time--into a flesh-and-blood man, the man who was the largest spirit of his time. Hunter, explorer, settler, visionary, he was a trailblazer and a revolutionary--an American icon for more than two hundred years. Born in 1734, Boone served in the Virginia legislature, participated in the settling of the Middle West, fought in the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War, and saw the election of his friend as the first president of the United States, the Louisiana Purchase, and the beginning of the Westward Expansion. Unlike many others of his time, he had a deep respect for the Indians, who taught him how to hunt, navigate, and survive in the wilderness he came to revere.--From publisher description.