"Lewis and Clark: Across the Divide expands and transforms this familiar story by exploring the social and cultural landscapes the expedition traversed. Lewis and Clark: Across the Divide also follows the explorers' steps by reconstructing the richly physical worlds of the expeditions. Gathered in this volume are 400 illustrations, the results of a five-year enterprise to trace and authenticate the original artifacts, documents, maps, and artworks of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Scattered for two hundred years, the surviving physical evidence is now reassembled from more than fifty lending institutions and individuals across the United States. The result is a new view of the equipment the expedition used as well as the color, complexity, and diversity of the cultures they encountered - items that gave the young Republic its first glimpse of what later became the cross-continental nation. A concluding essay weaves together contemporary tribal perspectives to summarize Native American experiences since Lewis and Clark's visit, mapping out a powerful - and hopeful - vision for the future."--Jacket.