{"product_id":"9780195305029","title":"Desperate Passage: The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Donner Party has been synonymous with the most harrowing extremes of human survival. But until now, the full story of what happened-and what it tells us about human nature and about America's westward expansion-remained shrouded in myth. Drawing on fresh archeological evidence, recent research on topics ranging from survival rates to snow-fall totals, and heartbreaking letters and diaries made public by descendants a century-and-a-half after the tragedy, Ethan Rarick offers an intimate portrait of the Donner Party and their unimaginable ordeal: a mother who must divide her family, a little girl who shines with courage, a devoted wife who refuses to abandon her husband, a man who risks his life merely to keep his word. \"The Donner Party,\" Rarick writes, \"is a story of hard decisions that were neither heroic not villainous. Often, the emigrants displayed a more realistic and typically human mixture of generosity and selfishness, an alloy born of necessity.\" A fast-paced, heart-wrenching, clear-eyed narrative history, Desperate Passage casts new light on one of America's most horrific encounters between the dream of a better life and the harsh realities such dreams must often confront.  \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Oxford University Press, USA","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47016412545264,"sku":"9780195305029","price":74.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780195305029_p0.jpg?v=1763664584","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780195305029","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}