Our guest this week is author, historian, and magazine editor Lanny Jones. He is the author of "William Clark and the Shaping of the West. His latest work is Celebrity Nation.

Shortly after the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore and map the newly acquired territory and to seek a water route to the Pacific Ocean. Lewis and Clark's two-year Tour of Discovery ended in September 1806 as the explorers returned to St. Louis with maps, sketches and journals detailing the region's plants, animal life, geography, and indigenous people.

In 1814, many Americans were able to learn for the first time about the western lands upon the publishing of the book titled History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains of Lewis and Clark.

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