Down the Great Unknown (Paperback, New edition)

On 24 May 1869, a ragtag band of ten mountain men voyaged down the last unexplored area in the American Southwest. To adventurers of the era the immense Grand Canyon was almost as mysterious as Atlantis – and just as perilous. John Wesley Powell, an eccentric yet highly gifted veteran of the Civil War, drove the expedition with supreme self-confidence and incurable optimism, often clashing with the independent-minded misfits he had hired. Edward Dolnick captures the excitement and fear of the journey in a thrilling narrative that encompasses a cast of memorable heroes and one of the great feats of endurance of all time.

'Six tired, half-starved adventurers who had started the trip as rowdy, hollering mountain men came back from an ill-equipped expedition that had taken them ninety-nine days of whitewater terror, fire, feuding, thirst, hunger – which had cost them the lives of three of their companions. Dolnick keeps his narrative flowing like a strong current, pioneering in prose with much of one-armed Powell's own self-confidence.'
Iain Finlayson, 'The Times'