This ebook box set includes the following books by Stephen E. Ambrose, focusing on the ingenuity and the hardships that shaped the American West: Undaunted Courage: This #1 New York Times bestseller gives a sweeping account of the most momentous expedition in American history. Ambrose follows the Lewis and Clark Expedition from Thomas Jefferson's hope of finding a waterway to the Pacific, through the heart-stopping moments of the actual trip, to Lewis's lonely demise on the Natchez Trace. Along the way, Ambrose shows us the American West as Lewis saw it--wild, awesome, and pristinely beautiful. Nothing Like It in the World: A riveting account of an unprecedented feat of engineering, vision, and courage--this is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad. The US government pitted two companies--the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads--against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution, and their race brilliantly comes to life in Ambrose's telling of the investors who risked their businesses and money; the enlightened politicians who understood its importance; the engineers and surveyors who risked, and sometimes lost, their lives; and the Irish and Chinese immigrants, the defeated Confederate soldiers, and all the laborers who did the backbreaking and dangerous work on the tracks.