Like most people, I have big holes in my knowledge of the world. Drury and Clavin helped me fill some of those holes with their new biography of Daniel Boone, Blood and Treasure. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know who Daniel Boone was, and I definitely owned a faux coonskin cap[1] purchased at Chimney Rock (in the olden times when it was privately owned and they still had the hill climb race). But I’ve never read a book about Boone as an adult, and there is a lot I don’t know about southern Appalachia’s frontier history, even though it is my history.
Drury and Clavin’s approach is perfect for me. I’m not a big biography reader. When I do read one, I prefer it devote ample page space to putting a person’s life into historical context. Drury and Clavin do that—there is an entire chapter devoted to the French and Indian War that elides Boone altogether. Ample page space given over to Boone’s time in the Yadkin Valley is equally welcomed by me, as a North Carolinian.
Hillbilly Highways 