Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West by Hampton Sides

Sep 29, 2008 Steve rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, history

If you don’t know much about Kit Carson, or his life and times, Hampton Sides’ Blood and Thunder is probably a fine place to start. Carson was one of those rare historical figures whose life would intersect, numerous times, with important moments, and people, in American history. Primarily, Sides focuses on Carson’s role with the whole Manifest Destiny movement, which was initiated by President Polk in the 1840s. Still, this is an enormous chunk of history that literally covers the entire contin...more

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Jul 18, 2007 Jeffrey rated it 4 of 5 stars

O.K. So I finally got off my duff. It's not that I haven't been reading, this is just the first book I finished since I signed up for this web site.

Hampton Sides is managing editor of Outside magazine. He does a very creditable job acting as a historical researcher documenting the life of Kit Carson, hero of the West, and still writing an exciting action filled book that reads like a novel at times. Who'd have guessed that Kit Carson was a legend in his own time, not just a comic book hero for m...more

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Jun 24, 2012 Cameron rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, non-fiction, western

This is an excellent history of the "pacification" of the Navajo and the conquest of the American west following the Civil War. The book is also part biography, part character study of Kit Carson, a famous mountain man who is deeply involved in the story. I was most impressed with the impartiality of this book - it's no "Trail of Tears" narrative. The author shows the crimes committed and suffered on both sides, and I found it difficult to sympathize with anyone other than the innocents who were...more

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Jan 28, 2009 Joe rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: History buffs, dropouts.

Recommended to Joe by: Mountain Man Geronimo R.

Wow. Did Kit Carson really live that life? OK, he was no angel, nor is he portrayed as one, but the book's critics seemed to miss the point that he fit into the world of the old Southwest like a native. His "beef" with the Navajos had as much to do with his ties of kinship to their traditional enemies as anything else. I can't see a typical racist, imperialist American marrying a Native-American, learning ( though illiterate ) several of their languages and spending years in a tepee or cabin in...more

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Jan 11, 2009 Andrew added it

There is very little good one can say about this dime-story quality novel disguised as an authentic accounting of the â€œconquest of the American West.â€� The author is far too confident in his interpretation of history, especially when one considers the fact that he relies primarily on secondary sources. Itâ€™s nothing more than a long book report with antiquated and questionable anthropological sources favored over recent scholarship in Navajo studies and studies on the American West. I was th...more There is very little good one can say about this dime-story quality novel disguised as an authentic accounting of the â€œconquest of the American West.â€� The author is far too confident in his interpretation of history, especially when one considers the fact that he relies primarily on secondary sources. Itâ€™s nothing more than a long book report with antiquated and questionable anthropological sources favored over recent scholarship in Navajo studies and studies on the American West. I was thoroughly surprised that such shoddy scholarship could pass with such high praises. He favors particularly Kluckhohn, Underhill and McNitt.

Aside from his questionable sources, Sides writes as though he is compiling a screenplay rather than commenting on an important part of US history. Ultimately I think he secretly hopes this will become a film as he construes his time line to fit a standard, Hollywood dramatic arc. Meaning huge gaps of time between his hero (Kit Carson) and development in his antagonist (the Navajo) are oddly juxtaposed, at times skipping back-and-forth in time. If this is supposed to be history, itâ€™s an odd approachâ€”maybe this should be considered in discourse on postmodernism, haha.

The worst feature of this book, however, is his apologetics for Kit Carson, who is a cheap war criminal used to expand US domination over the continent. If a similar approach was take toward the German expansion over Eastern Europe, the author of such a work would be immediately chastised, but in the American West notions of moral rights and wrongs are excluded from consideration. Kit Carson was an uneducated and aggressive killer used by the US to expand (illegally) territorial claims over the American West. He committed some atrocious acts that in the contemporary lexicon of international law would have branded him a war criminalâ€”but out vanity and possibly a deluded nostalgia for the American West of cheap, dime-store novels, he paints Mr. Carson as a reluctant conqueror. It m(less)

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Apr 09, 2013 Sheila rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: u-s-history

The book is well written and the history important. I wanted to learn something of Kit Carson, who is kind of an icon that I (and I think others) know little of, other than that he was a Westerner. There's no question he was an excellent mountain man - trapper & tracker of humans and animals; wholly self-sufficient in the wild. He was also a minion, as opposed to a leader, by which I mean that he was a tool of Fremont and other "leaders" and did many bad deeds at their command. It was not un...more

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Feb 26, 2013 Peter Fortune rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, biography

Don't be put off by the cliched title--this is a surprisingly interesting history of the early Indian Wars in the New Mexico region as well as a good biography of Kit Carson, the Zelig of the Southwest. Told in a brisk and very literate way, with thorough research into the letters and military reports of the participants, the book a must-read for those interested in Southwestern history and the American push westward.

The Mexican War of 1846, James Polk's invasion of New Mexico, was over quickly,...more Don't be put off by the cliched title--this is a surprisingly interesting history of the early Indian Wars in the New Mexico region as well as a good biography of Kit Carson, the Zelig of the Southwest. Told in a brisk and very literate way, with thorough research into the letters and military reports of the participants, the book a must-read for those interested in Southwestern history and the American push westward.

The Mexican War of 1846, James Polk's invasion of New Mexico, was over quickly, but it was followed by conflicts with the many Indian tribes in the area, particularly the Navajo. A climate of perpetual tribal warfare had ancient origins aimed not at acquiring land but at capturing livestock and slaves, or at revenge for raids by the other tribe. The Utes, Navajos, Mescalero Apaches, JacillaApaches, Comanches and others feared and hated each other. The U.S. entry into this boiling pot failed to consolidate the tribes against a common enemy and the U.S. took advantage of the internecine conflicts by, for example, using Utes as scouts on missions against the Navajo. The inability of the various tribes to cooperate was a significant factor in the U. S. success. Another major factor was firepower: bows and arrows and some old rifles couldn't compete with "modern" rifles and howitzers, Add to that the U.S. Army's remarkable duplicity (an example: massacres of Indians just after a treaty was signed) and you know who will lose.

An extended period of Indian conflict continued until Custer's last stand in 1876--a thirty-year war--and until his death in 1868 Christopher "Kit" Carson popped up everywhere. An illiterate Missourian, Carson began his career as a trapper until the market for beaver hats gave way to silk. He then morphed into an amazingly astute scout, tracker, and Indian fighter with a remarkable ability to survive against overwhelming odds. Sympathetic to the Indians (his first wife was a Navajo), he nevertheless was an American loyalist who worked for--and became an officer in--the U.S. Army. His courage, his ability to innovate in combat, his integrity, and his ability to communicate with Indians made him an important figure in the Indian Wars.

This interweaving of Carson's biography with the larger regional history is spectacularly successful.

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Jan 02, 2013 Ian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A very solid and enjoyable history book. Sides writes in an engaging character-driven narrative style rather than like traditional histories (so he does tend to embellish events with what are undoubtedly undocumented details), which may be a put-off for those looking for a solid historical text. However, this makes for excellent casual reading that most histories are not well-suited for.

In terms of historical content, Blood and Thunder uses the life of Kit Carson as a central thread to explore t...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Socraticgadfly rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography, history, military-history

How does an illiterate become a general in the U.S. Army?

When that illiterate is also America's foremost trapper, tracker and mountain man -- Kit Carson.

Hampton Sides details the contrasts, contradictions and more of Carson in his award-winning new biography, "Blood and Thunder."

Having grown up in the Four Corners country of the Southwest, I'm quite familiar with many of the events recollected by Sides. Kit Carson's Cave, for example, was a natural formation in the sandstone red rock about 20 mi...more

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Jul 29, 2012 Gary Brecht rated it 5 of 5 stars

The history of America’s westward expansion in the nineteenth century should not be told without examining the role of Christopher “Kit” Carson. Hampton Sides tells us that “Blood and Thunder” was the description given to the penny novels so popular at that time. Even Carson himself found the content of these tales beyond belief. But Sides separates fact from fiction as he narrates the exploits of this legendary frontiersman.

Among the things Carson participated in were the blazing of trails to...more

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May 08, 2012 Carl Brush rated it 5 of 5 stars

My ignorance sometimes appalls me. The first time I visited Santa Fe --in my 40’s, old enough and educated enough to know better--I was astounded to see that the city had been founded ten years before Plymouth Rock felt the tread of a Pilgrim’s foot. I knew the Spanish had been nosing around Mexico and the Southwest since the 16th Century, but had no notion they’d done anything permanent. Well, they had. And in 1826 young and orphaned Christopher Carson of Missouri sauntered down the Santa Fe t...more My ignorance sometimes appalls me. The first time I visited Santa Fe --in my 40’s, old enough and educated enough to know better--I was astounded to see that the city had been founded ten years before Plymouth Rock felt the tread of a Pilgrim’s foot. I knew the Spanish had been nosing around Mexico and the Southwest since the 16th Century, but had no notion they’d done anything permanent. Well, they had. And in 1826 young and orphaned Christopher Carson of Missouri sauntered down the Santa Fe trail on his way to becoming a legend in his time and ours.
Hampton Sides takes the title of Blood and Thunder from one of the sensational novelettes of the day purporting to relate the true exploits of the heroic mountain man. It’s a good description not only of his fictional exploits, but of his actual deeds, which were indeed numerous and implausible to ordinary mortals. “Blood and Thunder” a poor description of the man himself, however. An understated, wiry, little guy, he was apparently incapable of braggadocio or self-promotion. He had a laconic, wry turn of speech that epitomizes the taciturn but spot-on phrasing of our classic western literary hero. Like the one he uttered when someone asked him if a compatriot of his might have been guilty as suspected of cannibalism during John Fremont’s disastrous fourth expedition. “During starving times,” Carson responded, “no man walks in front of Bill Williams.”
I appreciate the art with which Hampton Sides put his subject’s life and character in context. Unlike the Marco Polo bio I read recently (Dec. 28 comments) Sides gives us not only a chronology of Carson’s life and deeds, but the feeling and texture of his time and place. He never launches an episode without backstory and character descriptions of other important players in the narrative. And just when you think you might be hearing a bit too much about Kearny or Fremont or Carleton or Stockton and too little about Kit, here he comes back on stage and you see clearly not only his actions, but their source and influence--how he got there and where he went. It takes great artistry to weave such a plethora of information and characters into a coherent story, and Sides makes the tale not only coherent but thrilling and suspenseful.
Mostly, the Carson Sides gives us was a good guy whose reputation for courage and compassion and pioneering skills is well-deserved. He was trilingual, though illiterate. He lived and married and reproduced both among the Indians and the Mexicans before Manifest Destiny brought the hordes from the east. Still, he was a staunch unionist who--like most of the Indians themselves--fought mercilessly when his side was attacked. He had one daughter by the first love of his life, a Blackfoot woman named Singing Grass. He took her back east (Missouri) for her education. He served as guide for John Fremont on three of his four expeditions and probably had at least as much to do with their success as Fremont himself. He fought valiantly and effectively as a Colonel against an invasion of Texas confederates in the beginning (1862) of the Civil War. [Didn’t know about that one, did you?] Unlike some other of his contemporaries, he deserves all the passes and lakes and cities that are named after him.
Perhaps the sole black mark on his record were his battles against the Navajos, who were among the fiercest resistors against U.S. and Mexican incursions into their lands. His sad role in The Long Walk, the Navajo version of the Cherokee Trail of Tears, taints his legacy. Despite the fact that he truly believed most of the troubles between Indians and whites were caused by whites and that a reservation was the best protection the Natives could be given, he knew the assigned area could not sustain the population and so contributed directly to the death by disease and starvation of thousands. (They were eventually moved back to an area in their own homeland under the order of none other than William Tecumseh Sherman.)
Carson was a good soldier, though, and he actually became, to his embarrassment, a general by the end of his life. I learned a good deal, among other things, about James Polk, for whom I had only the phrase “Manifest Destiny” and knowledge of his preemptive provocation of the Mexican war to hang on his name before this. I like him less now than I did before. Like our history of the western conquest a bit less, too.
Blood and Thunder is among the very best pieces of western history I have ever read and a biography of the highest caliber. Pick it up. You won’t put it down till it’s over. Then go visit Santa Fe and Taos. It’s still wild enough there to imagine it happening all around you.
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Apr 14, 2012 Marilynmayer rated it 5 of 5 stars

The tragedy of the West comes alive through the web of Kit Carson, a quintessential roustabout of the trapping, exploring, warring, frontiersman found in the western territories from the 1840s-1860s. Like all good fictional characters, the real person of Kit Carson, is at times admired by native nations from the Apache to the Zuni, while he sheds not a tear in killing Indians in the pursuit of their lands for the American government. The book reads like an anthropological treatise on the Navajo...more

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Feb 21, 2012 Stubble rated it 4 of 5 stars

When I was younger, Kit Carson was a TV series. Just like all the westerns back then - the hero was a good guy fighting all the bad guys. This book was great because it presents an unfiltered history of a segment of the Manifest Destiny that we were all taught about. There are good guys and bad guys in the Indians, Spanish and Whites.
Carson is a type of character that we don't see much of these days. He looks at his situation, decides the best course of action and then does it. Most of the time,...more

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Jan 18, 2012 Ann rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a remarkable account of the history of America's westward expansion. With the continual expansion of American settlement west,came the added difficulty of living in harmony with the Native American population. President Polk , wanting to add territories to America that included New Mexico and California, eventually took up arms against the Mexicans who refused outright to sell these lands to the U.S. With the eventual ceding of New Mexico and California to the U.S., came the added diff...more

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Dec 05, 2011 Bob rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, 4-star, non-fiction, depressing

I lived in New Mexico for about 14 years and didn't know any of this history. Fascinating. I'm glad I had a dictionary, wikipedia.org, and Google Earth on my iPad as references. I had to read a county library hardcover edition as there is no eBook edition out yet. "Blood and Thunder" is not like most books I read which I can practically speed read through. You know the ones; real page turners, lots of dialogue, short paragraphs and chapters, with words everybody knows. Here is a list of just a...more

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Nov 03, 2011 Esther rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adventure, history, life-and-death, non-fiction, audio-book

3.5* Epic is right. I didn't know much of anything about the history of the American Southwest - there's a lot to tell, apparently. What a nasty, unholy mess it was. Sides does a great job of fleshing out the characters - Kit Carson being the main representative of that time period - but all mentioned were characters with a capital C. What a bloody tragedy and embarrassment most of the battles were. More massacres than otherwise. Loved all the stuff about the Anasazi - or how the Navaho eluded c...more

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Oct 14, 2011 Richard rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

"Blood and Thunders," were the dime novels of the American west, and many of them were based on the exploits of Kit Carson. They had Gen. Carson rescuing maidens, killing Indians by the score, leaping great chasms in a single bound, etc, etc. But, here's the thing, if there ever was a superman of Manifest Destiny, it was Kit Carson. He was an illiterate, soft spoken mountain man, plains man, pathfinder, scout, Indian killer and Indian protector, trapper, trader, soldier, diplomat, friend to Gene...more

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Sep 06, 2010 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: american-history

Not very far into it yet but it's pretty good...the analysis of President Polk is a bit skewed and wrong-headed but Polk tends to stir up strong emotions amongst those who know enough to be aware that he was one the States' most important Presidents...if a controversial one. So far a must read.

Well...I finished it and it was a good read. It's definitely a populist history and not analytically challenging but it does speak to the Navajo 'Long Walk' which has not been examined enough...unlike the...more

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Aug 30, 2010 Spencer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, biography

Very fascinating book about the legendary Kit Carson and the Wild West of the early to mid 1800s. Carson was already a legend in his day for his many incredible stories of adventure, exploration, and escape. His life included a complicated interaction with the Native American people - at times befriending and aiding them, other times ruling over and killing them. He famously served as the guide for John Fremont on his three exploratory expeditions of the West, and later was involved in leading t...more

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Sep 30, 2009 Steven Peterson rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is an excellent biography of a famous American pioneer--Kit Carson. What sets it apart is its humane treatment of a complex figure. Carson appears to have been the "real deal," not a manufactured hero.

The book proceeds by interweaving several story lines, which can be somewhat confusing at times but, in the end, this serves the author well. Among the story lines--Kit Carson's exploits, the Navajo leader Narbona's story, General Stephen Kearney's episodes, and so on.

Kit Carson's role--from...more

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Jun 12, 2009 Patrick Gibson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, biography, the_west

When the Pulitzer for fiction was handed out in 2006, I was adamant it had been given for the wrong book (“March”). “Blood and Thunder” should have had the honor hands down. I was actually angry over this. The clarity of thought and expression in this chronicle goes way beyond your ordinary history of the West. Not just a biography of Kit Carson, though he is used as the fulcrum which balances western expansionism with Native Americans (primarily the Navajo), this is a comprehensive discourse on...more When the Pulitzer for fiction was handed out in 2006, I was adamant it had been given for the wrong book (“March”). “Blood and Thunder” should have had the honor hands down. I was actually angry over this. The clarity of thought and expression in this chronicle goes way beyond your ordinary history of the West. Not just a biography of Kit Carson, though he is used as the fulcrum which balances western expansionism with Native Americans (primarily the Navajo), this is a comprehensive discourse on immorality of Manifest Destiny and the second genocide on this continent by Christian hordes. Yet it is fair—explaining equal arguments for actions incurred.

The author gives a great deal of thought and description to the warrior Narbona. In fact he lavishes wonderful character descriptions to all of the Indian leaders. It is, perhaps, this very equanimity in the writing that gives the book such a powerful presence.

Before reading “Blood and Thunder” I was a Kit Carsonphobe. I would tell people not to visit his home or grave. I felt the need to enlighten visitors to Santa Fe and Taos on the villainy of the man. I would not take people to Fort Sumner and the Bosque Redondo. I was a bit extreme in my denunciation but I wanted people to know Carson was not the hero of mythmaking pulp novels of the 19th century (known as ‘Blood and Thunder’s’).

I’ve tempered my insubordinate spirit on poor Mr. Carson—mostly because of this book. While I still despise the whole concept of Divine Right (xenophobia is what it is), the author’s insight into the political nightmare in Washington after the Civil War helps place a great deal of what happened in perspective.

This is much more than an unfathomable story told on an epic scale. The descriptions of the land, the culture of the Dine (Navajo) and the sheer panorama of the New Mexico land where the drama played out is described with passion and exuberance.

The author even writes poetically on mundane subjects—for example here is a wonderful little toss off paragraph on bells (which are still BIG deals in Santa Fe):

“On the night of September 24, 1846, bells rang over the city, incessantly, crazily, as they always did when something was afoot. From the six churches they clanked and clanged, filling the streets with a maddening metallic din. The Santa Feans loved their bells and used them to announce every occasion—weddings, masses, even races and fandangos. Their sound was far from dulcet, for most of the bells were decrepit and cracked, some having been forged centuries earlier in Castille and shipped by galleon across the wide ocean and then hauled nearly two thousand groaning miles north from Mexico on the desolate wagon road, the Camino Real, which long served as the town’s only umbilicus to the civilized world. Through their long sojourns, the bells had been splashed with brine, dropped in silty arroyos, and pecked by bullets. They had seen revolts and massacres, and had endured several centuries of a steady faith’s ringing in the extremes of a high desert clime. Even though the bells were tarnished and streaked with verdigris, they remained the pride of the town, enduring relics from a time when the crown of Spain reigned as the greatest power on earth.”
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May 20, 2009 Adele rated it 4 of 5 stars

Blood and Thunder could be a really dry history book that I tried in vain to read because I really thought I ought to, a la 1776. Except for that it wasn't dull. I'm biased because I'm obsessed with New Mexico and I never had New Mexico History in school, but I found Sides' account of Kit Carson's life, the plight of Native Americans in the West and conquest in general just short of riveting. Blood and Thunder wasn't a page turner per se, but still managed to be really interesting and thought-pr...more Blood and Thunder could be a really dry history book that I tried in vain to read because I really thought I ought to, a la 1776. Except for that it wasn't dull. I'm biased because I'm obsessed with New Mexico and I never had New Mexico History in school, but I found Sides' account of Kit Carson's life, the plight of Native Americans in the West and conquest in general just short of riveting. Blood and Thunder wasn't a page turner per se, but still managed to be really interesting and thought-provoking. I think it helped that I have been to and can picture many of the locales in the book, but there were certain chapters about places I've never been (the parts with Fremont in Oregon, for example) that were just as good. Blood and Thunder deepened my understanding about what happened to the Navajo (and other tribes in the West) and informed me on pretty much everything I know about Kit Carson. I wish there had been more photographs and less sketches in the picture sections of the book (and more photographs in general! They're so evocative) but this is a minor quibble. A friend of mine, who is the best-read person I know, said that he had a hard time with the book because it was poorly edited. (He cited an example of Sides giving two different dates for Carson's birth at separate points in the book.) This is a slightly different point, but at first, I got sort of annoyed with Sides' editorializing. He writes things like "As Carson watched the campfire smoke curl up to the peaks of the cold San Juans and the clear stars above, he thought longingly of Josefa and their cozy Taos hacienda, posole simmering over the fire," which of course is basically fiction. I mean, Carson probably did miss his wife, but Sides consistently tells the story like he's in the character's heads. Which works and doesn't-- it's evocative, and make the book read more like a long story (thus making it much more palatable to readers like me) but also can lead to borderline too-much-inference on what these people were actually thinking. Overall, though, I found Sides' treatment of historical events pleasant to read, informative and accurate. (less)

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Apr 25, 2013 Caroline rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: american-history

Kit Carson is one of those legendary figures that I've always been vaguely aware of but never entirely sure why. He was in the same sort of pantheon as Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, rough-and-rugged mountain men, legendary heroes of the West - but I never knew why he was a legend, what his history was, what he'd done or where he'd been. And this book more than fills in those blanks.

But this book is more than a straightforward biography of Kit Carson. The author weaves in the story of the land...more

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Jun 10, 2012 Richard Glass rated it 4 of 5 stars

At times it tends to be a little flowery in it's language and to slightly bog down, but in all it is a very interesting and informative book. Although I had a general knowledge of Kit Carson's role in the settling of the West, it was a real eye opener to see exactly how he developed and the experiences he had. He was an ultimate champion of the native Americans of the Southwest, and did much to ensure (as much as he could) their survival and retention of at least part of the lands they inhabited...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Michael Cremin rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is an excellent volume of narrative history, difficult to put down and tremendously compelling. I have, for some years now, wished to read a single volume history of the Indian Wars, and while Blood and Thunder concerns itself primarily with the conflicts in New Mexico, Arizona, and California, I certainly now know much more about this time period than I did before I began reading.
Blood and Thunder follows the life of famous American mountain man and soldier Kit Carson. His life and career...more This is an excellent volume of narrative history, difficult to put down and tremendously compelling. I have, for some years now, wished to read a single volume history of the Indian Wars, and while Blood and Thunder concerns itself primarily with the conflicts in New Mexico, Arizona, and California, I certainly now know much more about this time period than I did before I began reading.
Blood and Thunder follows the life of famous American mountain man and soldier Kit Carson. His life and career were deeply intertwined with the colonization of the American West, with the conflict between the United States and Mexico, with the Civil War battles in that part of the country, and—more than anything else—with the bloody, violent encounters between the United States Army and the Navajo Indians. The author uses Kit Carson, both the man and the legend, as the foundation of his story about ‘how the West was won,’ but many other characters from American history make this book an engaging and gripping read.
Having read American history with the credulous eyes of a child, then viewing that same history through the critical eyes of a college student, I now find myself trying to synthesize these two very different analyses of our nation’s past. The God Bless America, John Wayne shoot ‘em ups of my childhood have been replaced by the shameful and sorrowful dirges of Dances with Wolves, but I have learned that neither portrait is complete. Yes, the settlers of the American West were brave and hardy. Yes, the Native Americans were shamefully treated. Yes, the American settlers were brutal, and yes, the Native Americans were socially, culturally, or politically unprepared to understand the nature of their invaders. At the same time…groups of human beings moving into the territory of other human beings and displacing them goes back to the days of Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals. Likewise, the Navajos were just as likely as the Hispanics and Americans in New Mexico to steal, rape, torture, and murder. All parties in this story took and kept slaves. The Indians, the Mexicans, and the Americans committed atrocities. No group was innocent of the violence that so characterized this painful and frightening chapter in American history. Long before the United States Army showed up, Indians and Mexicans preyed on each other. Long before the Spanish made an appearance, Indians preyed on each other. That’s simply how it was.
None of this excuses the broken treaties, the massacres of innocents, the forcible removals, the denial of self-determination, and the willful, purposeful deculturalization faced by the Native Americans. But the portrayal of Native Americans over the past few decades by historians like Howard Zinn and James Loewen (among many) as peaceful, innocent, hippy-like Loraxes is simply untrue.

Nothing about history is simple.
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Mar 09, 2010 Manuel rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is a long and dry history book. The middle third veers away from Kit Carson's path and describes the history of the Navajo nation's defeat and banishment to a reservation in New Mexico.

The book is a camera that focuses tightly on Kit Carson, his accomplices and other historical figures, and describes their exploits and adventures over Carson's lifespan. The backdrop is of old Native American lands and old Spanish settlements, but this is definitely not an anthropological account bringing Na...more

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Oct 27, 2008 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: US history buffs, Native American enthusiasts.

What a book. Extremely interesting account of Kit Carson's life, and the life of the pre-Civil War southwest. The bold, beautiful, cowardly and brave are all revealed, with a cast of characters that would rival any Russian play.

As usual, the American Indian ends up with the short end of the stick. Anyone looking to have a better grasp of the history of New Mexico should read this book.
Mr. Sides is to be credited for such a great tome.

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Mar 07, 2011 Susan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Published in 2006, Sides might have subtitled this something about Kit Carson since he is the central figure in the book.

I am not a history buff, but I agreed to read this for a book discussion led by one of my long-time friends. (Oh, what we will do for our friends.) I do know that if my high school American history teacher had made the study of history as interesting as Sides does I might have a whole different feeling about it at this late date. But that didn’t happen. Sigh…

The stories Sides...more

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Oct 13, 2011 Tom rated it 4 of 5 stars

Well written history that primarily follows the amazing life of Kit Carson, but also tracks the convergence of the "Army of the West" and the Navajo nation as those two entities interact with Kit Carson's life.

The writer is perhaps a bit too taken with Carson. He doesn't sugar-coat Carson's life and acts, especially in regards to some of the more despicable things he was responsible for (example: the strategy of essentially starving the Navajos out of their ancestral homeland). After all, Carso...more

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Sep 27, 2012 Nena rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-reads

Audiobook:

I am currently on an American West kick and thought this book would appeal to my appetite for authentic, non-fiction information that wouldn't put me to sleep and this fit the bill.

This is a long book which covers many years, many states and many people and the narrator, Don Leslie, does a marvelous job in inflecting just the right tonage to bring everything to life. The descriptions and mini-bios of quite a few historical figures beginning with Kit Carson and his relationship with th...more

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/109487.Blood_and_Thunder?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320480510l/109487.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/109487.Blood_and_Thunder?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West by Hampton Sides[/url]

Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West

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