Called a "man of genius" by his close friend Thomas Jefferson, John Ledyard lived, by any standard, a remarkable life. In his thirty-eight years, he accompanied Captain Cook on his last voyage; befriended Jefferson, Lafayette, and Tom Paine in Paris; was the first American citizen to see Alaska, Hawaii, and the west coast of America; and set out to find the source of the Niger by traveling from Cairo across the Sahara. His greatest dream, concocted with Jefferson, was to travel alone around the world and cross the American continent from the Pacific Northwest to the Atlantic. Catherine the Great dashed that dream when she had him arrested in deepest Siberia and escorted back to the Polish border. Ledyard wrote the definitive account of Cook's last voyage and his death at the hands of Hawaiian islanders, and formed a company with John Paul Jones that launched the American fur trade in the Pacific Northwest.Before the Revolution, Americans by and large didn't travel great distances, rarely venturing west of the Appalachians. Ledyard, with his boundless enthusiasm and wide-ranging intellect, changed all that. In lively prose, journalist James Zug tells the riveting story of this immensely influential character -a Ben Franklin with wanderlust-a uniquely American pioneer. In Ledyard's short life (1751-89), his accomplishments included sailing with Captain James Cook on Cook's third voyage and writing about Cook's murder in Hawaii. He formed fur-trading companies with Robert Morris, the Philadelphia financier, and John Paul Jones, the notorious sea captain, and he visited Egypt before Napoleon's invasion opened the country up to Western travelers. Thomas Jefferson asked Ledyard to explore the American continent, the plan calling for him to proceed overland through Russia, cross at the Bering Strait, and head south through Alaska and across the American West to Virginia. This expedition failed after 15 months of traveling, when Empress Catherine the Great had him arrested in Siberia. Zug asserts that during his trip Ledyard's focus was not on the landscape but on the people in it; his letters and journals sparkled with descriptions of customs and habits. This meticulously researched biography of an ingenious explorer will hold the reader's complete attention. George Cohen Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved James Zug has written for The Atlantic Monthly and Outside, and is the author of Squash: A History of the Game. He attended Dartmouth College, where he first became acquainted with legendary alum John Ledyard. Zug lives in Washington, D.C.