October 11, 2009 marks the bicentennial of Meriwether Lewis's death. As the leader of the Lewis and Clark expedition, an epic exploration of uncharted territory west of the Mississippi, Lewis has been the subject of several biographies, yet much of the published information is unreliable. A number of myths surrounding his life and death persist.

Now independent scholars Thomas C. Danisi and John C. Jackson have written this definitive biography based on twelve years of meticulous research. They have re-examined the original Lewis and Clark documents and searched through obscure and overlooked sources to reveal a wealth of fascinating new information on the enigmatic character and life of Meriwether Lewis.

Instead of focusing on the Lewis and Clark expedition, the authors concentrate on what Lewis was doing immediately before and after the journey through western territory. They assess his role as a natural scientist and as governor of the Louisiana territory. His lifelong mentor, Thomas Jefferson, thrust the latter role upon Lewis during a time of crisis. As Danisi and Jackson reveal, he would much rather have devoted this time compiling his notes and scientific findings into a vivid narrative of the expedition's adventures.

Finally, using medical documentation, the book reveals the actual cause of Lewis's untimely death. The authors address both the conspiracy theories regarding murder as the cause of Lewis's death and the longstanding belief that he committed suicide.

The Meriwether Lewis that emerges from this thoroughly researched biography is a man of honorable intentions who met severe challenges and handled difficult confrontations with patience and diplomacy. Both professional historians and armchair devotees of American history will want to add this important new work to their libraries.

Microreview - Meriwether Lewis by Thomas C. Danisi and John C. Jackson

It’s hard to believe that Thomas Danisi and John Jackson have written the first comprehensive, full-length biography of Meriwether Lewis in fifty years, but it’s true: Lewis, the brilliant, mercurial half of the greatest land-based voyage of discovery since Marco Polo, has not fared well with his biographers. There are ample records for his life, including of course that 1803-1806 voyage he made with his good friend William Clark, but they have been overshadowed by the records of his 1809 death and the rampant speculation that followed – was it murder or suicide?

Danisi and Jackson wade into that controversy with fists flying, and to my mind they explain every aspect of Lewis’ death beyond cavil or reconsideration. Young men dying violently will always engender theories, but Danisi and Jackson have done enough research on the question to satisfy anybody who’s ever going to be satisfied.

But it would be an ironic shame if that research overshadowed the rest of this splendid book, because this is exactly the kind of lively, exceedingly intelligent, accessibly-written Life & Times that every great figure in history deserves – the kind of biography steadily being supplanted in these waning days by yet more studies of Napoleon’s penis. Danisi and Jackson are authoritative and interesting on every part of Lewis’ life, not just the last part, and of course they keep their eyes always on that great voyage – and the book that was expected to come out of it:

"Could Lewis write a book? Because Jefferson liked to compose his own letters, the president’s secretary had been more of an aide-de-camp than a copyist. Now he had to complete a narrative of the expedition that would recount the experience, recapture a sense of the adventure, and recover a feeling of the natural world that they had passed through like innocents in a garden. That was a daunting challenge even a practiced man of letters might take months or years to complete. But Lewis, the only man who could do the glorious subject justice, would have only a couple of months to write it."

We’ll never know what kind of a book Lewis could have written if he’d had ample time and ample health with which to do so, but we know what kind of a book Danisi and Jackson have written: meaty, entertaining, and best of all, definitive.

–Steve Donoghue