Professor of History Maurice Isserman is the author and an editor of a new textbook, Exploring North America, 1800-1900 (Facts on File, 3/05). According to the publisher, Exploring North America, 1800-1900, traces the history of the exploration of western North America during the 19th century, an immensely complicated story involving thousands of individuals over a territory of millions of square miles, and the impact of that exploration on the national histories of both the United States and Canada. Highlights of the book include:
- The fur trade's role in the exploration of North America, encompassing such events as John Jacob Astor's establishment of the American Fur Company
- The U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers' scientific exploration and mapping of the western United States
- John C. Fremont's five expeditions between 1842 and 1854 that covered more than 20,000 miles, some of them in present-day California
- John Wesley Powell's summer 1869 expedition that traversed the length of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon
- The Klondike gold rush and Alaska
