Scientist Turned Spy

"A biography of André Michaux, the most famous scientific explorer of North America before Lewis and Clark, who was conscripted by the revolutionary French government as a secret agent to organize American frontiersmen to attack Spanish-controlled New Orleans, seize control of Louisiana, and establish an independent republic in the American West. New evidence also implicates Thomas Jefferson in the plot. Patrick Spero sheds new light on politics, diplomacy, scientific exploration, and the air of uncertainty and opportunity in the early republic"--