The Pioneers by David McCullough

 After the Revolutionary War, the Treaty of Paris gave the United States the Northwest Territory, a large fertile area east of the Ohio River. A group of New England men formed a society with the purpose of settling the new area in an organized and profitable manner.  This book follows the lives of some of the earliest settlers as they struggle to set up a civilization in the wild terrain, and then grow that settlement into thriving communities.

I have read and enjoyed David McCullough's histories before.  This one was well researched and engaging as his other books have been.  As I read about how the settlement struggled with starvation the first few years, but slowly got a foothold in a new land, I couldn't help but think of my own ancestors who went through the same process, a couple of decades later, in Utah. McCullough ends the book with excepts from the obituaries and tributes given about the men that were the focus of his narrative. He talks about how there were no greater "Christian Gentlemen" to be found than these men.  As I read that, I suddenly realized that this book was written almost entirely from a white male perspective.  There was some mention that the native peoples who were driven out of their ancestral homes by the settlers, but in the end, McCullough portrayed the relief of the main characters when the natives were finally driven to land north and would no longer be a bother. There was very little said about the contribution of women, except in how they had lots of children and supported their husbands.  There were scattered mentions of people of color, but none were the main focus of any sizable part of the book. It reads like a book published 30 years ago and I was a little surprised when I saw that the publish date was so recent.  (352 p., 2019)