"Some are remembered because they transcend the failings of their age. Custer is remembered because he so perfectly embodies the failings of his." With this epilogue, Philbrick not only captures the lasting power Custer has on the American imagination, but also explains the power of history to continue to inform the present. Apply this test to our present portfolio of leaders and schemers and see if it helps to clarify which is which.

I listened to Philbrick's "The Last Stand" while driving across the great plains from our cabin in Southern California to Chicago. Though slightly removed from the grasslands of the Little Big Horn valley and last stand hill, it is not too difficult to transport oneself from the rolling prairies of western Nebraska, along I-80, to the similar topography of Southeast Montana where Sitting Bull & Crazy Horse were camped with 8000 other Sioux on that hot July day in 1876.

I must admit that the 4th star is more a reward to the wonderful narrator -- George Guidall -- than the narrative itself. I have now listened to one of Guidall's books for more than half of my 20 annual trips across the heartland. He is most notable as the narrator of the Tony Hillerman series of Chee & Leaphorn stories of the Navajo Tribal Police.

Herman Melville framed Ahab with this telling description: all mortal greatness is but disease. Custer acted out his disease against the great native people of America -- leading them to become, in our national consciousness, as mythical and subservient to our "progress" as Ahab's whale.

Well worth reading but perhaps even better listening to!