Across the Continent: Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and the Making of America, and: Exploring with Lewis and Clark: The 1804 Journal of Charles Floyd, and: Jefferson's Western Explorations: Discoveries Made in Exploring the Missouri, Red River, and Washita, and: The Shortest and Most Convenient Route: Lewis and Clark in Context, and: Venereal Disease and the Lewis and Clark Expedition (review)

Whether these five books represent a new trend in Lewis and Clark studies cannot be answered for certain just yet; however, as a group they clearly indicate a major shift in focus away from many of the earlier grand narratives of the Corps of Discovery. Those narratives largely analyzed the events and encounters during the trip from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean and back or focused on the participants in the expedition in general or on the actions, mental state, or knowledge of its leaders, Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, in particular. These new works, however, push the boundaries of past scholarship in new directions. They decenter the main events of the expedition either by examining broader frameworks for understanding the expedition or by focusing on different topics and historical figures treated by earlier historians as marginal to the main story, if they were covered at all. Even Stephen Ambrose's interest in Thomas Jefferson, a major figure in several of the essays examined here, declined dramatically once Lewis left Monticello for Philadelphia. The five works under current review include two edited collections, Across the Continent and The Shortest and Most Convenient Route, that contain only one essay that makes primary use of sources produced by the Corps members or addresses a topic largely centered around the well-known activities of the expedition. The other three works include a medical history, Venereal Disease and the Lewis and Clark Expedition, whose scope is limited to only one area of sickness; a facsimile of Thomas Jefferson's 1806 Message of the President to Congress, Jefferson's Western Explorations, which places the Lewis and Clark expedition within the context of other river explorations of the time; and Exploring with Lewis and Clark, a facsimile of the journal of Sergeant Charles Floyd, whose account is the shortest of the six extant journals from the expedition because of his sudden death on August 20, 1804, a mere three months after the Corps left St. Louis.

While some of these studies or documents are more successful than others in terms of advancing our knowledge of this time period, the fact that they were all published around the time of the bicentennial of the Corps of Discovery expedition is significant. The mere existence of each of these volumes can be attributed to the heightened interest, among both scholarly and general audiences, that is presumed by many publishers to surround all things pertaining to the expedition. An awareness of this broader context of publishing strategies is important with regard to issues associated with the intended audience and content of each work and in some cases with the fact that they were published at all.

The essays collected in the volumes Across the Continent and The Shortest...