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Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

by S.C. Gwynne

4.13 · Rating details · 22,521 Ratings · 2,483 Reviews

In the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a stunningly vivid historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West, centering on Quanah, the greatest Comanche chief of them all.

S. C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanche

S. C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches.

Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined just how and when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. So effective were the Comanches that they forced the creation of the Texas Rangers and account for the advent of the new weapon specifically designed to fight them: the six-gun.

The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne’s exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads—a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being.

Against this backdrop Gwynne presents the compelling drama of Cynthia Ann Parker, a lovely nine-year-old girl with cornflower-blue eyes who was kidnapped by Comanches from the far Texas frontier in 1836. She grew to love her captors and became infamous as the "White Squaw" who refused to return until her tragic capture by Texas Rangers in 1860. More famous still was her son Quanah, a warrior who was never defeated and whose guerrilla wars in the Texas Panhandle made him a legend.

S. C. Gwynne’s account of these events is meticulously researched, intellectually provocative, and, above all, thrillingly told.

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Hardcover, 384 pages

Published May 25th 2010 by Scribner (first published 2010)

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Sep 05, 2011 William Thomas rated it liked it

Shelves: general-history

As a historian, I will rarely give a general or popular history more than 3 stars. Much the same way I will never say 'an historian'. And no matter the amount of research that goes into popular history, it hardly ever seems to merit so much praise. And that is because it answers no questions, asks no new questions, puts forth none of its own theories, and has no one singular hypothesis. This book, although a fantastic, sweeping history of the Comanche, it is not a work to be discussed as academi As a historian, I will rarely give a general or popular history more than 3 stars. Much the same way I will never say 'an historian'. And no matter the amount of research that goes into popular history, it hardly ever seems to merit so much praise. And that is because it answers no questions, asks no new questions, puts forth none of its own theories, and has no one singular hypothesis. This book, although a fantastic, sweeping history of the Comanche, it is not a work to be discussed as academic history.

The most irritating part of the book is the history of Quanah Parker himself. The most bold and interesting history comes from the first half of the book, up until the introduction of the Hays Rangers.

What the book does is prove that the Comanche were, without a doubt, the most powerful tribe in American history. But this is not a new idea, as most historians would agree that the Comanche dwarfed all other horse tribes in the West in terms of accumulated wealth- an idea that, before the white man, was unknown to the Comanche. Once they mastered the horse, they ascended quickly from Gollum-like scavengers, a group of hyenas picking up the scraps of others, into the most feared Indians in America.

Part of the reason that Western Indian tribes were so feared comes from their lack of domesticity. They did not farm or keep animals for slaughter. They had to hunt on the plains and badlands because farming was not an option. The development of the land in the West around Oklahoma, Texas, Wyoming etc was one of the reasons for the Dust Bowl, and by extension, the Great Depression. These lands were not fit for farming, and the plains tribes understood this. However, Americans flooded the land and used all the technology at hand to turn the l;and into life-bearing plots. But I digress. The Comcanche and Apache and Lakota and Sioux were far more aggressive in the West than thier Eastern counterparts due in fact to their need to hunt in order to sustain their way of life on the plains.

But this subject is never touched upon in this book. It never puts forth an actual hypothesis. It never answers questions, but instead gives us fact after fact. And while that is useful and entertaining, especially in this case, it does little to advance our actual knowledge of the 'why's'.

I do congratulate [EDIT] (the author of) this book for not balking at the violence inherent in the Comanche. Too often historians will shy away from the amoral acts of an Indian tribe in order to preserve the idea of a noble savage. In this, we are treated to detailed accounts of Comanche torture. Cutting off the toes, the fingers and genitals of Spaniards, Americans and other frontiersmen, and stuffing them into their owners' mouths was common practice. Letting hot coals burn through a captive's abdomen was another torture technique often applied. There seemed no end to their torture ingenuity. And Gwynne does not make this a symptom of Europeans in America. Gwynne does not say that this was a practice only developed after the Europeans came and brought war upon the land. Which is in fact a fallacy. War between tribes was never bloodless. It was never so pretty or noble. It was always petty and savage. And to think that the white devil unleashed something sinister within the Indian upon their arrival is no more than PC demonizing and pandering to the modern day tribes.

Overall, the book will give the average reader insight into the frontier they did not possess before reading it. It is filled with facts- like the development of the Colt, the relationship between Eli Whitney and Samuel Colt, the Hays Rangers, the torture techniques of Comcanches, the destruction of the Apaches, the transformation of the Comanche from the 1600's- that will entertain and often disgust. But all in all it is well worth the read. ...more

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Jan 04, 2017 Arah-Lynda rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: top, lod, i-said, lets-get-real

The desert wind would salt their ruins and there would be nothing, no ghost or scribe, to tell any pilgrim in his passing how it was that people had lived in this place and in this place had died.
Cormac McCarthy

The date was October 3rd, 1871. Six hundred soldiers and twenty Tonkawa scouts had bivouacked on a bend of the Clear Fork of the Brazos, about one hundred and fifty miles west of Fort Worth, Texas. Though they did not know it at the time their presence marked the beginning of ...more

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Aug 01, 2010 Lawyer rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, american-indians, military-history, american-indian-wars, american-indian-culture, 19th-century, biography, texas, comanche, quanah-parker, texas-rangers, ulysees-s-grant, randall-mckenzie, john-coffee-hayes

Sam Gwynne's History of the Spanish, the Texans, the Americans and the Comancheria

Sam C. Gwynne attended Princeton and Johns Hopkins Universities. He's spent most of his life as a journalist. He spent almost twenty years as a correspondent, bureau chief, and Chief Editor for twenty years. Gwynne's work has appeared in the New York Times, Harpers, California, Texas Monthly, among other publications. Gwynne was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction for Empire of the Summer Moon ...more

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Dec 05, 2011 Anna-Liisa rated it did not like it

I quit reading this book after the fourth chapter. As it is one of the most racist books I have ever read, I am baffled by the glowing reviews it receives. For your consideration:

"Thus the fateful clash between settlers from the culture of Aristotle, St. Paul, Da Vinci, Luther, and Newton and aboriginal horsemen from the buffalo plains happened as though in a time warp--as though the former were looking backward thousands of years at premoral, pre-Christian, low-barbarian versions of themselves. I quit reading this book after the fourth chapter. As it is one of the most racist books I have ever read, I am baffled by the glowing reviews it receives. For your consideration:

"Thus the fateful clash between settlers from the culture of Aristotle, St. Paul, Da Vinci, Luther, and Newton and aboriginal horsemen from the buffalo plains happened as though in a time warp--as though the former were looking backward thousands of years at premoral, pre-Christian, low-barbarian versions of themselves."

Oh really? Then there's this gem:

"Making people scream in pain was interesting and rewarding for [the Comanche], just as it is interesting and rewarding for young boys in modern-day America to torture frogs or pull the legs off grasshoppers. Boys presumably grow out of that; for Indians, it was an important part of their adult culture and one they accepted without challenge."

Wow. Just, wow. You'd think we'd be a little more forward thinking nowadays than Andrew Jackson was in 1833:

"My original convictions upon this subject have been confirmed by the course of events for several years, and experience is every day adding to their strength. That those tribes can not exist surrounded by our settlements and in continual contact with our citizens is certain. They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear."

Then there's Gwynne's boldfaced claims that are, as far as I can tell, backed up with little to no research. My favorite is his claim that the great Pueblo revolt in 1680 was "very likely" the result of the Pueblo Indians being upset that the Spanish were not doing a good enough job of protecting them from the Apaches. Absolutely no citation to any authority. I don't claim to be an expert in this area of history myself, but that sure was not the impression I got when I was at the Taos Pueblo earlier this year. It sounded to me like it was more the brutal oppression at the hands of the Spanish, but whatever.

The worst part is that I had a sinking feeling that the author was going to decide that Quanah Parker was alright at least partially because he was half white. Maybe the author would have proved me wrong, but I just couldn't stomach all his talk about the uncivilized, stone age, savage Comanche who were, according to the author, dirty even by Indian standards. Zero stars. ...more

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Dec 18, 2013 Lyn rated it liked it

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S.C. Gwynne, first published in 2010, tells the entertaining and informative, somewhat scholarly account of the Comanche tribe.

Gwynne uses the histories of Cynthia Parker (the historic inspiration for Natalie Wood’s character in John Wayne’s The Searchers and the Mary McDonnell character Stands With a Fist in Kevin Costner’s film Dances With Wolves) and her son ...more

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Sep 16, 2011 Bill rated it did not like it

I bought this at the airport, it looked like a good read. A chapter or two in the language and stereotypes became really disturbing. His version of human history, summed up in two pages is just bizarre.The language, and long discredited concepts that Gwynne prattles along with are apalling."Higher civilizations", of which the Plains Indians were "three to four millennia behind". And oh yes, the Native Americans were "premoral, pre-Christian, low-barbarian versions" of Europeans. And of course t ...more

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May 30, 2011 Vanessa rated it it was ok

Other reviewers' claim that this is an unbiased historical account is laughable. This is yet another telling of a war written by those who won it. Gwynne states that he constructed the book using "a large number of firsthand accounts from the era." The firsthand accounts written are naturally all of settlers and the military, and all of them appalled and offended that anyone could dare attack them and deny the greatness of Manifest Destiny. The books and articles referenced in the end are, as fa Other reviewers' claim that this is an unbiased historical account is laughable. This is yet another telling of a war written by those who won it. Gwynne states that he constructed the book using "a large number of firsthand accounts from the era." The firsthand accounts written are naturally all of settlers and the military, and all of them appalled and offended that anyone could dare attack them and deny the greatness of Manifest Destiny. The books and articles referenced in the end are, as far as I can tell, predominantly written by non-Natives. There isn't even a reference section for interviews, and no respectable book written about Native culture or a tribe should at no point reference interviewing tribal members about their own history!

The author repeatedly makes frustrating unreferenced assumptions that he passes on as fact. These assumptions certainly make the book a more entertaining read, but that doesn't make it true. The descriptors that Gwynne uses are far from historically accurate. He describes Comanche culture as stone aged, barbaric, totally disorganized and lacking in any sort of theism. Basically devoid of any substance or intelligence. I might be more inclined to believe him if he actually referenced some Comanche sources in this regard. Additionally, those are loaded terms with heavy implications. He refers to Quanah's peyote "cult." A cult?

It is not that I feel that this book needs to be some huge exploration of Comanche culture. But given that it is supposed to be about Comanche history, it should offer far more insight about the actual people rather than looking at them almost exclusively through a settler's lens. For example, within just a few pages, Quanah transforms from being a bloodthirsty war chief to a master negotiator who agrees to move his people to the reservation. Yet there is no exploration or real insight about that significant change.

As I started the book, I was intrigued by the deep and personal accounts of the settlers, an interesting story worth telling and hearing. But the missing voice of the Comanche people in a book purportedly written about them became too deafening a silence, and I eventually was frustrated enough to write this review.

...more

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Oct 01, 2013 Jennie rated it did not like it

Shelves: american-history, goodwill-pile

This book is not about Quanah Parker, his mother, or the Comanche. It's really about How the White Man Conquered the Savage, Primitive, Warmongering Barbarians.

My complaints about this book are many, but I'll try to keep it simple.

Mainly, it's because a "history" written in 2010 contains things like this:

There were no witnesses to this great coming together of Stone Age hunters and horses, nothing to record what happened when they met, or what there was in the soul of the Comanche that underst ...more

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Jul 21, 2017 Montzalee Wittmann rated it did not like it

Shelves: worst-books-ever

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S.C. Gwynne is full of great research and racism. This book has only a tiny, tiny mention about Quanah. This book is very misleading by the title and blurb. It should be called, "How the Horrible Redman was Subdued by Mighty Whiteman". Only once did it mention how James Parker, the head man that thought it would be a great idea to build a home in the middle of In ...more

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Mar 19, 2011 Jon Donley rated it it was amazing

As a native Texan who grew up in the former Comancheria, and whose family (both white and native) has deep roots there, I've always been fascinated by the blood-feud between Texans and Comanches. I was once an editor for Ted Fehrenbach, and admire his classic on the Comanches, and found this to be an excellent, well-told companion piece. Ironically Comanches were the proximate cause of Texas developing into the home of its most implacable foes, as Spain desperately recruited Anglo Americans to s As a native Texan who grew up in the former Comancheria, and whose family (both white and native) has deep roots there, I've always been fascinated by the blood-feud between Texans and Comanches. I was once an editor for Ted Fehrenbach, and admire his classic on the Comanches, and found this to be an excellent, well-told companion piece. Ironically Comanches were the proximate cause of Texas developing into the home of its most implacable foes, as Spain desperately recruited Anglo Americans to stand as a buffer between New Spain and the Indian Nation that was its most dangerous foe. And there was irony on the other side, too, Spain lost its territory (and much more besides) to the "human buffer" that had been thrown to the Comanche lances.

The book does a great job of painting the big picture of the history of the Comanches' ascent, invasion and conquering of its desired homeland, and in setting up the coming clash with the Texans. It always seemed to me that the reason the Comanches and Texans were such bitter enemies were that they were so much alike. Both were fighting for a homeland, neither intended to let anyone stand in their way, and both were capable of almost unthinkable savagery.

The story of Quanah, which is threaded through the book, but is actually only central to the last act, was a great, honest portrait of a man worth knowing.

One episode of the story of the Comanches is missing from the book, as it is from most tales of the conflict. In at least one case, the Comanches early on made a lasting peace agreement with the whites. In the mid-1840s, the founder of Fredericksburg learned that he'd been scammed into purchasing land for his German settlers that just happened to be located deep inside Comanche territories. In scouting out the territory, he found himself confronted with what was described as thousands of Comanches, whose campfires surrounded his camp.

Fortunately though, the Germans, who were by temperament much different from the English-Gaelic settlers of the north-Central Hill Country, came to a peace agreement with the Comanche chiefs, including Buffalo Hump, that allowed them to live there unmolested. In the mid-1990s, the descendants and relatives of those German settlers (including at least one from Germany) met in Fredericksburg with a large group of Comanches from Oklahoma - including the tribal leader and a granddaughter and great-granddaughter of Quanah Parker. There was a powwow celebrating the 150th anniversary of this treaty, which is the only one known to have never been broken by either side in the troubles between whites and Indians.

This is a great read.

Jon

(note that I bought the Kindle version)

...more

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May 20, 2013 El rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommended to El by: Dicker

Shelves: cultural-studies-and-other, native-american

I didn't really need to read this book because I've seen Pocahontas and remember very vividly this whole song. Reading this book was sorta like reliving that song and that's a damn shame.

Aside from how freaking white this book is, and not even commenting on the occasional racist undertones (or overtones), it's just not even that great of a book. The subtitle leads the reader to believe that this will be about Quanah Parker when in reality that played such a small part of whatever it was Gwynne w I didn't really need to read this book because I've seen Pocahontas and remember very vividly this whole song. Reading this book was sorta like reliving that song and that's a damn shame.

Aside from how freaking white this book is, and not even commenting on the occasional racist undertones (or overtones), it's just not even that great of a book. The subtitle leads the reader to believe that this will be about Quanah Parker when in reality that played such a small part of whatever it was Gwynne was blathering on about. It was fact after fact after boring fact, and I don't think I learned much of anything new outside of the very few facts he included about Quanah himself. Everything else was stuff I already learned in high school history classes that told the same story from the same whitebread perspective.

Then, just as I was feeling confident that the book was almost over and I could relax again, Gwynne went and started talking (briefly) about the Native American Church which Quanah influenced. So, okay, this could be interesting, I don't know a whole lot about it, so I woke up a bit. And then this happened: "[Quanah] had to fight to keep prosecutors away from his peyote cult."

Cult?

Religion vs Cult. 'Nuff said.

"The white man goes into his church and talks about Jesus, but the Indian goes into his tipi and talks to Jesus." Quanah Parker

I'm not going to sit here and pretend that there was any innocent party involved in this violent and horrific part of American history, and no one should. But this book is just one more reminder of how much attention the white experience has received.

I cannot understand how this was a Pulitzer nominee. Unless Pulitzers are just like Grammys and are based on word-of-mouth and is just a popularity contest.

In the end I give this 2 stars, not because I thought it deserves 2 stars, per se, but because the wee bit of information that actually involved Quanah Parker was interesting and was the sole reason I wanted to read the book. But even those parts were a stretch.

Meh. ...more

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Jul 27, 2012 Tim rated it it was amazing

Every now and then one runs across an historical non-fiction book that is breathtakingly enlightening.

Commancheria - the millions of acres of treeless plains encompassing northern Mexico to present day Nebraska, the land of the 5 principal bands of the Commanches, a culture centuries behind the development of the eastern Indian tribes, and intertwined with the buffalo herds. Commancheria - a region so forcefully held by the Commanches that the westward tide of Anglo-Saxon expansion was held at ...more

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Nov 25, 2016 Clif Hostetler rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history

Comanche history and culture is the focus of this book. The subtitle of the book markets itself as a biography of Quanah Parker, but he doesn't show up until the final fourth of the book.

Starting with the pre-columbian history the book describes the revolutionary change brought about by the advent of horses on the plains. It enabled the Comanche who had been culturally among the lowliest among the tribes to transform into being the invaders from the north. They were a branch that had separated ...more

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Feb 03, 2013 Ashleigh rated it did not like it

Astonishingly, uncomfortably, unforgivably racist portrayal of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The (fascinating) history that exists in this book is buried so far beneath the author's prejudice that his account is wholly untrustworthy. This book is useful only as a study in modern-day manifestations of racism that go unacknowledged in mainstream American culture.

Here are four illustrative examples of the casual racism entrenched in the author's vocabulary throughout the book:

1. “While t Astonishingly, uncomfortably, unforgivably racist portrayal of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The (fascinating) history that exists in this book is buried so far beneath the author's prejudice that his account is wholly untrustworthy. This book is useful only as a study in modern-day manifestations of racism that go unacknowledged in mainstream American culture.

Here are four illustrative examples of the casual racism entrenched in the author's vocabulary throughout the book:

1. “While the Comanches had a limited vocabulary to describe most things—a trait common to primitive people—their equine lexicon was large and minutely descriptive." (34)

2. “[The Spanish] style of colonialism worked best on sophisticated, centrally ruled tribes like the Aztecs and Incas. It did not work at all on the low-barbarian, precivilized, and non-agrarian tribes of northern Mexico.” (54)

3. And this extraordinary speculation about the moral evolution of civilizations: "What explains such a radical difference in the moral systems of the Comanches and the whites they confronted? Part of it has to do with the relative progress of civilizations in the Americas compared with the rest of the world. [...] Once the Indians figured out how to plant seeds and cultivate crops, civilizations in North and South America progressed at roughly the same pace as they had in the Old World. Cities were built. Highly organized social structures evolved. Pyramids were designed. Empires were assembled..." (59)

4. And most unbelievably: "Thus the fateful clash between settlers from the culture of Aristotle, St. Paul, Da Vinci, Luther, and Newton and aboriginal horsemen from the buffalo plains happened as though in a time warp--as though the former were looking backward thousands of years at premoral, pre-Christian, low-barbarian versions of themselves."

The disgust I felt at the author's 18th century ethnographic "analysis" of the Comanche people made it impossible to do more than skim the rest of the book. I wish I could give this 0 stars for reductive and unapologetic historical revisionism.

I suppose it serves as an excellent reminder of how far we have to go in race relations in the U.S. ...more

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Aug 08, 2012 David Brickley rated it really liked it

This is a book that I think every American should read. In the beginning we came into this land and immediately began displacing all of the aboriginal peoples who had dwelled here for many centuries. Yet I would wager that almost nobody knows anything about those peoples other than what watching Wagon Train has showed them. Which leaves out anyone born later than 1960. This is all to say that this book does an excellent job of showing, with most excellent clarity, the dichotomy of a native peopl ...more

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Apr 19, 2012 Greg rated it did not like it

Wow! Was this written in 1908? I was surprised and very disappointed by this book. I was taken in by the author's very good writing. The way he writes is so engaging and it reads better than most history books I've read.

There were two things that bothered me about the book. First, were the inaccuracies. I'm not as well read in the History of the American West as many people, but I was finding common mistakes, especially when he was talking about other tribes.

What bothered me more was the fact th ...more

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Jul 27, 2014 Max rated it it was amazing

Shelves: american-history

Hard hitting, rugged and raw history that feels chillingly authentic. Neither the white man nor red man comes out well in this retelling of the brutal collision of the Comanche and relentlessly expanding America. I was quickly disabused of any idyllic notions. Well written, detailed and informative, highly recommended for anyone who wants to know how the West was really won.

Odd and End Thoughts:

GR readers seem to be hotly divided as to whether Gwynn’s depiction of the Comanche is racist or simp Hard hitting, rugged and raw history that feels chillingly authentic. Neither the white man nor red man comes out well in this retelling of the brutal collision of the Comanche and relentlessly expanding America. I was quickly disabused of any idyllic notions. Well written, detailed and informative, highly recommended for anyone who wants to know how the West was really won.

Odd and End Thoughts:

GR readers seem to be hotly divided as to whether Gwynn’s depiction of the Comanche is racist or simply tells it like it was. I fall into the latter group. That nomadic hunter gatherers were ruthless is hardly unusual. I enjoyed Gwynne’s notion of a time warp. Equating Herodotus’ view of the ancient Celts to the Anglo view of the Comanche, he sees the nineteenth century Celt (Scotch-Irish) now encountering a version of himself from centuries past. This book definitely strikes a nerve in some. These reactions may say as much about how non-native Americans view themselves and their legacy as the Comanche.

I seem to remember from school that the white man killed all the buffalo thereby starving the Indians out of their native existence. But in Gwynne’s account, the plains Indians had been decimated and the remaining few interred on reservations before the wild buffalo were exterminated, albeit just before.

Interestingly, Cynthia Ann Parker who had been captured by the Comanche at the age of 9 was adopted by a Comanche family and married a Comanche chief could never adapt back to life in white America when taken back by her relatives at the age of 33. She always tried to run away to return to her hardscrabble Comanche life and nomadic home in the wilds of the plains. However her son Quanah by her Comanche husband Peta Noconah born and raised in the Comanche tribe to become a warrior chief, after surrendering to reservation life when 27 was not only able to adapt to the white man’s ways, but prosper and achieve prominence and respect in the Anglo world.

For an eye opening look at a Hollywood makeover, compare a picture of the real Cynthia Ann to her as portrayed by Natalie Wood as the character Debbie in the John Wayne movie, The Searchers, which is based on Cynthia Ann’s uncle’s attempts to take her back from the Comanche.

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm155528755...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cyn...

Sorry, couldn't make the HTML work for me to show the above images.

...more

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Aug 27, 2014 Brian rated it did not like it

So far I am extremely disappointed in this book . I picked it up after Having finished " Bury my heart at wounded knee " (amazing novel) and similarly was expecting a more honest , transparent view of the Indian American wars . However so far the labels savage , primitive And violent have all been assigned to the Comanches. Gwynne highlights the violence toward settlers without explaining that these same settlers were stealing native lands with no restraint much less remorse. They were also driv So far I am extremely disappointed in this book . I picked it up after Having finished " Bury my heart at wounded knee " (amazing novel) and similarly was expecting a more honest , transparent view of the Indian American wars . However so far the labels savage , primitive And violent have all been assigned to the Comanches. Gwynne highlights the violence toward settlers without explaining that these same settlers were stealing native lands with no restraint much less remorse. They were also driving the buffalo to near extinction but Gwynne attributes this to "profound change" by "opportunistic men". Gwynne is so quick to demonize the comanches but neglects to reveal that Slavery was alive And well in texas. Texas was notorious for harsh oppression towards blacks , and mexicans. Moreover In 199th century Texas women were legal property of their husband. Hence they were often abused and lived lonely lives. Not so much with the Comanches but with numerous other tribes women who had been kid napped by natives and later CHOSE to stay with their captors! There is a famous painting of an exchange between Delaware indians and settlers and the children of the settlers refuse to return to their former Lives! Furthermore Gwynne dares to make the case that historians have " often refused even to Acknowledge that the white women had been victims of abuse ". Nothing could be further from the truth , American historians will often emphasize so called merciless attacks from Indians and always seem to ignore that the u.s army openly attacked and slaughtered whole villages filled with women and children . Sand creed Massacre , The murdering of navajo women in children in a slanted horse race, and wounded knee come to mind, however it is very convenient of Gwynne to not expand on topics of white brutality which categorized the Indian American wars . I challenge those who praise this story to read primary native sources to understand this situation in a better light. All the sources complied by Gwynne come from white settlers. Lastly Gwynne fails to acknowledge that Red Clouds "Ogala Siox" was the first nation to militarily defeat the United States on the field of battle, forcing them to sign a peace treaty. This happened in 1868, and is well documented, which can be clearly seen in the fact that tensions came to a breaking point over such treaties in the take over of wounded knee in 1973. Instead Gwynee makes the ludicrous claim that the Comanche were the only ones with enough gall to resist the U . S government

Even worse are reviews claiming Gwynne remains neutral . On page 43 Gwynne clearly states "it is impossible for me not to make moral judgements about these people" he highlights Comanche violence and then judges them with vivid descriptions and strong accusations . In terms of the Parker family he claims they are "righteous, hard nosed, innocent " even says they played their sweet little fiddles at night painting a perfect picture of an innocent child dealing with a wild savage . It's disturbing so many love this book, I guess most are uneducated in the subject of American Indian wars and have personal bias dating way back to their ancestors . The fact this book became a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize highlights the issue westerners have with their own brutal history ; They refuse to be honest. ...more

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Sep 13, 2011 Robert Delikat rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I have read a number of books on native peoples and it’s always rewarding when they are somewhat balanced. For example, books by Joseph Marshal III consider a history of Native Americans much more comprehensively than S.C. Gwynne does in Empire of the Summer Moon. Marshall, while perhaps because of his own ethnicity, does not only write of the war, weapons and carnage of the combatants but also of their cultures and the backdrops and backgrounds of what led to and obtained during war. Reading Gw ...more

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Jul 19, 2010 Curtis Seven rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, non-fiction

I'm not sure that comparing the fights against the Commanche in Texas to the Sioux Wars is really a topic that will bring a universal agreement as to who fought best and so on. The description of the tactics used by the Commanche in their fights and their horsemanship are identical to accounts of the fights in the northern plains and the skills of the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne.

The Sioux and Commanche share some common things as both were horse tribes, they both drove other tribes from the bes ...more

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Jul 15, 2013 David Ober rated it did not like it

Shelves: 19th-century-america

Popular history is a strange genre that often seems suspended between genuine academic rigor and amateurish quackery. For every book of popular history written by a well regarded historian and aimed at educating the general public, there are at least a hundred written by a layperson that, even if he or she does the appropriate amount of footwork, usually ends up reproducing antiquated historical narratives. While a professor of history might understand how to read nuance into old sources, an ama Popular history is a strange genre that often seems suspended between genuine academic rigor and amateurish quackery. For every book of popular history written by a well regarded historian and aimed at educating the general public, there are at least a hundred written by a layperson that, even if he or she does the appropriate amount of footwork, usually ends up reproducing antiquated historical narratives. While a professor of history might understand how to read nuance into old sources, an amateur too often takes the word of a writer from the past at his or her word. S. C. Gwynne’s book on the Comanche’s, Empire of the Summer Moon, is just such a book. Gwynne’s lack of understanding of the past causes him to repeat racist tropes from the 19th century that have no place in the modern day.

I knew little about Empire of the Summer Moon when I picked it up, except that it provided a lengthy history of the Comanche tribe alone with a recounting of the raid of the Parker family homestead, an incident that would go on to influence the John Wayne and John Ford film The Searchers. While reading the book, however, something seemed off. There was a certain leering quality to the way in which Gwynne described Comanche violence. There’s nothing inherently wrong about describing Native-American violence against white settlers. Across the centuries and over the course of many wars between whites and Native-Americans, atrocities were of course committed on both sides. But Gwynne often presents these acts of violence with little historical context, especially early on, and more troubling he continually returns to the word “savage.” While he applies the term to the violent actions of the Comanche and not necessarily to the Comanche themselves, the word has such a charged racist history that it would have been best to avoid.

But I soon realized that the language and the manner in which Gwynne decontextualized Comanche violence presaged a shockingly racist book. Even after this early warning sign, I continued to read, expecting popular history to offer its usual Eurocentric bias. But as I got deeper into the book, Gwynne’s racist attitudes became even more prevalent. The attitudes and beliefs that Gwynne espouses about the Comanche people are almost certainly relics of the 19th century, and it became a fascinating, if at times deplorable example, of how 19th century discourse has survived into the 21st century.

Like many writing in the 19th century, Gwynne represents the Comanche as a chronological throwback, an image of Europeans translated back into time. In recounting the impact that the introduction of the horse would have on the Comanche, Gwynne writes of the “astonishing change” that occurs because of “what this backward tribe of Stone Age hunters did with the horse” (28). You can see from Gwynne’s language how he moves from what he believes are merely descriptive terms, like the use of savage to describe incidents of violence earlier on in the book, to pejorative, qualitative language, like the term “backwards” in the above excerpt. This pattern repeats itself again and again in the book. It is an intriguing example of how racism simmers underneath Gwynne’s writing until it finally reaches a full boil and settles down once again.

Gwynne further explains that despite the Comanche ability to incorporate horses into their culture, “[t]hey remained relatively primitive, warlike hunters; the horse virtually guaranteed that they would not evolve into more civilized agrarian societies” (31). Here, in language that is oddly reminiscent of how some English spoke of the Irish’s dependency on potatoes during the potato famine, Gwynne points to the horse as a detriment, preventing the Comanche from becoming farmers (which should be read as assimilating to white American culture). Any cultural development that does not eventually lead to Anglo-American style agriculture and socio-political institutions are perceived as headed in the wrong direction.

While Gwynne manages to acknowledge Comanche skill at riding, he simultaneously robs them of the ability to reason when discussing the Comanche horse culture. Discussing the shrouded introduction of horses into Comanche country, Gwynne writes, “Whatever it was, whatever sort of accidental brilliance, whatever the particular, subliminal bond between warrior and horse, it must have thrilled these dark-skinned pariahs from the Wind River country” (32). Relying on the assumption that Comanche human beings must have had some kind of mystical relationship with their horses, Gwynne can only imagine that the incorporation of horses into Comanche life and subsequent technological development to tame and breed horses must have been “accidental.” It never even occurs to Gwynne that the Comanche could possibly observe the natural world around them and logically manipulate both nature and their own society in order to better fit their own needs.

Gwynne never provides a full and complete image of contemporaneous white culture. He seems mostly concerned with comparing military technological and tactical differences between American settlers and whites (like a lot of popular history, Gwynne is often obsessed over military matters to the exclusion of the social, cultural, and economic). He decries how the Comanche treat their women, which is certainly fair enough. But he never notes that because of coverture laws, women in antebellum America had the legal status of property. He lingers on images of Comanche violence, but nowhere does he discuss the fact that American settlers in Texas were importing slavery and its systemic sins of forced labor, torture, rape, and extra-legal execution. Nowhere does he mention that the violence of slavery imposed by whites dwarfed the violence committed by the Comanche on almost every level.

It’s truly incredible how racist discourse from the 19th century influenced Gwynne’s writing. He even uses the term “barbarian” in what is presumably an anthropological sense. This is an outdated term popularized in the sciences by Lewis H. Morgan, John Lubbock, and Frederich Engels, all 19th century scientists. The continued use of this single word long past its expiration date characterizes Gwynne’s writing and mindset. At one point he defends his project by noting that we shouldn’t pretend as if American-Indians were naïve innocents who lived in a perfect state of nature. I agree. And if Gwynne were more familiar with academic research about Native-Americans, then he would realize that the image of Native-Americans as a culture of Adams and Eves has been out of fashion for decades. I also don’t think the alternative to describing Native-Americans as pure innocents is to resurrect racist ideas from hundreds of years ago.

If Gwynne’s book were just an isolated piece of poorly written popular history, then there wouldn’t be too much of a story here. But S.C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon was actually a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. This means that a large number of journalists not only did not see a problem with the racism of Gwynne’s text, but they believed that this was the sort of historical work worth celebrating. If nothing else, Gwynne’s book and its apparent success is an instance of discourse’s inertia. We like to think that language and ideas are always changing, moving forward and, ideally, improving. But the inertia of discourse suggests that backwards concepts from the past will remain with us unless there is a strong concerted effort to push against them.

...more

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Mar 18, 2012 Tripp rated it it was amazing

I can't decide whether this book is the best nonfiction I have read all year, or whether it is the best in the past few years. This is the sort of book that rises above its subject matter, thanks to narrative pace, blending in of context and the quality of the writing.

The book tells the story of the Comanche Empire which, having mastered horse warfare, defeated all enemies until the late 19th century. It took the US decades to find a way to defeat them. Much of the story is of two cultures clash ...more

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Jan 07, 2017 David rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Texas Ranger, Comanche war parties, white settlers with cornflower blue eyes

Shelves: non-fiction, history, audiobook, american-history, native-americans, 19th-century

This book is about the Comanche, one of the most powerful and warlike tribes of the American Southwest. It actually covers several separate "stories" over the course of the book. First, there is the history of the Comanche people themselves from their earliest beginnings to their final fate as reservation Indians, plains warriors made to become farmers. There are a lot of chapters about warfare between the Comanche, other Indian tribes, and the Spanish and the Americans, and woven through it, th ...more

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Jul 22, 2014 Jonathan rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I can not believe that Goodreads leads it's synopsis of this book by saying it is in the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. As many people have written in previous reviews of this book, the author is completely careless in his use of racial loaded language like: primitive, stone-age, uncivilized, savage, etc; he writes with a triumphant tone when describing the development of the Texas Rangers and the final campaigns of the US Army against the Comanche. While Gwynne insists that he is t I can not believe that Goodreads leads it's synopsis of this book by saying it is in the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. As many people have written in previous reviews of this book, the author is completely careless in his use of racial loaded language like: primitive, stone-age, uncivilized, savage, etc; he writes with a triumphant tone when describing the development of the Texas Rangers and the final campaigns of the US Army against the Comanche. While Gwynne insists that he is trying not to write a book that sentimentalizes or romanticizes the Comanches, he seems too eager to describe in gory detail the violence Comanche raiders and warriors directed at white settlers and other Native American Nations. While Gwynne does seem to be fascinated by the Comanches, to appreciate their ability to dominate a huge amount of territory, resist European encroachment on that territory, and even to admire the culture and lives of what he refers to as "free Comanches," the tone of Empire of the Southern Moon, feels white supremacist, and to describe it as in the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is very misleading.
Despite the racist language and gratuitous description of violence, Gwynne does offer some useful insight into the strategy and politics of violence in westward expansion/resistance. I particularly found the following passage from the chapter "War to the Knife" describing a period of rapid expansion of white settlement in terrioroty claimed both by Texas and the Comanches during 1850s. After describing a Comanche raid on a white settlement and the killing of a particular white woman of that settlement, and explaining that white "Frontier people" would have seen "Martha Sherman's death as the radom and senseless slaughter of a Christian woman by a tribe whos primitive, godless, and sub human nature it was to do such things," Gwynee goes onto write:
"But her death was neither random nor senseless. She was as much a victim of colliding political and social forces as she was of the arrows and knives of Peta Nocona's raiders." (Peta Nocona was Quannah Parker, the Comanche leader that Gwynne tries to build his narative around.) Her death meant something. It was the consequence of the unprecedented invaision of Comancheria by white settlers that had taken place at the end of the 1850's. The land she lived on was [... the] lush, open, long-grass prairie [...] and encompassed the rich and ancient buffalo ground that my Comanches had been fighting for since the early 18th century. [...] She and [her husband] Ezra were part of that clamorous. chaotic, and brazenly aggressive lunge into the enemy's territory. The Comanches saw it that way because there was no other way for them to see it."
It was because of passages like this that I kept reading this book. That and because where else am I going to encounter a detailed popular history of resistance to European expansion into Texas and the southern plains?
I happened to be visiting South Carolina at the time I was reading this book and while there I visited one of the forced labor camps, we white people like to refer to by the dressier name 'plantations.' I was struck both by my visit there and while reading this book that people of color, in order to gain access to their history, have to first wade through white people's racist presentation of white history. Empire of the Summer Moon, contains a lot of information about Comanche history, that Comanche people should have access to, should in fact "own." Preserved forced labor camps in the southern US, contain a lot of history about the lives and work and genealogy of people of African decent, information that Black people should have ready access to, information that Black people should rightfully have "ownership" over. But to get access to that history, that information, a Comanche or African American person would have to fist deal with Gwynne's onslaught of racist language and gratuitous descriptions of violence or some historical sites glorification of "antebellum plantation" life. I guess I knew that this is part of how racism works -part of how history is written by the victors works- but I just hadn't taken in how damaging that could be until reading this book while also visiting a preserved forced labor camp in South Carolina. ...more

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Dec 01, 2012 Mike Kershaw rated it really liked it

The Parker book I think is better and here I mean more balanced -- although his claims to Commanche 'exceptionalism' would probably find their critics in Sioux, Kiowa and Apache histories. He demythologizes the various opponents (Indians, Texas Rangers and US Cavalry), and gives an unvarnished account of the Indian lives (low birth rates, high mortality, brutal lifestyles -- ie a primitive culture) in particular. Parker's mother had been captured in a raid on the frontier and her fate is a centr ...more

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Jun 21, 2011 Dan rated it liked it

Not knowing much detail of this period of regional US history, I can't attest authoritatively to the accuracy of Empire of the Summer Moon but it feels like a very well researched work. Gwynne tells the stories of both the plains Indians and the white settlers in both a compassionate and critical manner. There is much, sometimes an amazing amount of, detail about the lives on boths sides in the southern great plains and learning the realities of what spawned the American Cowboys and Indians myth ...more

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Jun 15, 2011 Marcelle rated it it was ok

It's interesting, I'll give it that. And I'm learning more than I thought I would. But I'm over half way through the book and Quanah Parker hasn't risen past the toddler stage. (I got so frustrated just waiting for his mother's story to finish that I googled her to cut to the chase.)

Much of it is repetitive. Chapter 1, the Comanches were bad - stab, burn, rape, kill, steal. Chapter 2, the Comanches were bad - stab, burn, rape, kill, steal. etc etc. It does nothing to move the plot forward. (The ...more

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Oct 02, 2011 Kurt rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

It's hard to imagine the plains of the central United States as author S. C. Gwynne describes them. However, having seen many Westerns lately, I could put myself there. The level of danger that pervades the everyday lives of both Indians and White settlers is astounding. This book contains very graphic descriptions of individual acts of torture, rape, mutilation, and village massacres. Gwynne builds the story well, and readers will clearly feel the tides turn in favor of the the bluecoats, espec ...more

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Mar 12, 2012 Richard rated it really liked it · review of another edition

As noted on the blurb on this book's cover, S.C. Gwynne has chronicled a history of the Comanches, "the most powerful Indian tribe in American history." The book contains an excellent history of how the Comanches grew from a nondescript tribe living in the Wind River country (Wyoming), became early adopters of the horse culture of the plains in the early part of the eighteenth century, and moved south, to become the dominant force among Indian and European-based civilizations in an area comprisi As noted on the blurb on this book's cover, S.C. Gwynne has chronicled a history of the Comanches, "the most powerful Indian tribe in American history." The book contains an excellent history of how the Comanches grew from a nondescript tribe living in the Wind River country (Wyoming), became early adopters of the horse culture of the plains in the early part of the eighteenth century, and moved south, to become the dominant force among Indian and European-based civilizations in an area comprising a good part of the present states of Texas, eastern New Mexico, western Oklahoma, and parts of adjoining states. They became the best horsemen in the world and the military masters of the south plains. Among Native Americans, they excelled at horse breeding, breaking, riding and stealing.

This last activity was far from the least important aspect of the Comanches' lives. All Comanche warriors had their herds of horses; they were a measure of wealth as well as the means to move families around the plains, and to mount raiding parties. It was necessary to constantly add new stock to replace horses lost in battles as well as those traded and sold. Another tribal need was based on the low birth rates of the Comanches and the deaths of young men in wars. The Comanche simply couldn't survive as a tribal unit without constantly finding horses, and taking captives in Texas, New Mexico and Mexico.

"Empire of the Summer Moon" is concerned with about the last forty of the 170 years of the Comanche plains empire. The book's immediate timeline starts at the period encompassing the arrival of the Americans into Texas in the 1830's, as Gwynne states, shouldering their way up the Colorado, Guadalupe, Trinity and Brazos rivers, and over two decades, moving into the Indian hunting grounds, starting with the Cheyenne territories. Over several decades, the Americans increased their numbers dramatically, especially after the Texas Republic was established following the defeat of the Mexican army in 1836. As Gwynne notes (p. 130), people poured "giddily" into the West even though there was ample evidence that the need to push further west into the Texas interior to find fresh ground to build farms placed pioneers in great peril from Indian raiding party visits by the light of the full moon.

Many such encounters transpired on the Texas plains, often with tragic results. Gwynne pulls no punches in describing the horrible fate encountered by settler families overtaken in their homes by Comanches. But this book is not just an excellent history of those times. It is also a story of the offspring of a family whose fate, according to Gwynne, has been taught to generations of Texas schoolchildren. Specifically, it is the story of a nine-year-old girl, Cynthia Parker, who grew up among the Comaches and gave birth to a son we know as Quanah Parker, who would one day be a famous war chief of his tribe.

Cynthia and four other captives were taken by the Indians after an attack on Parker's Fort in May, 1836. The extended Parker family had built a strong, stockaded fort in the wilderness, where about twenty or so people resided. A Comanche attack led to five Parker deaths and the taking of Cynthia, Rachel Kellogg and her fourteen-month son, Rachel's aunt Elizabeth, and Cynthia's seven-year-old brother John. The captives would be literally dragged over the plains day and night on horses by the Comanches. Women, from teenaged years on up, would be constantly beaten and raped. In the Parker case, all of the captives were eventually split up, with Indian families taking the adults for slave labor, including, as Gwynne notes in detail, the constant need to gut killed buffalo and clean their hides. Rachel would have her son torn from her arms and murdered. Rachel would make a daring escape later, and would write the best-known account of the ordeal of an Anglo-European woman forceably taken by an Indian tribe. Elizabeth and John would be ransomed some time later.

The only one of these captives who seemed, for a long time, to have vanished for good was Cynthia. In reality, she was taken into a Comanche family and raised as one of their own. Gwynne describes how captives, usually children, could suddenly have the brutality of their existence changed when they became one of the "loved ones", an outsider taken into the bosom of a tribe. After about ten years of this new life, a Texas peace delegation would discover that the long-lost Parker girl was still living. What shocked them, and subsequent others, was that neither the tribe nor Cynthia were interested in her repatriation to her original family.

Her family, in the meantime, wanted her back, along with her other captured relatives. Her uncle, James Parker (Rachel's father) would become somewhat famous for his continued trips into Indian lands, five times from 1836 to 1837, with additional excursions from 1841 to 1844. All of these trips were extremely risky, involving traveling in hostile territory, and costly to a man who had hardly any money to buy clothing and survival equipment. James was instrumental in finding Elizabeth and raising the money, with help from his friend Sam Houston, to ransom her. His exhaustive efforts were the inspiration for the John Wayne role of Ethan, an uncle searching for years to find his captured niece played by Natalie Wood, in John Ford's epic movie "The Searchers", according to Gwynne. Actually, the Ford film was based on the novel "The Searchers" by Alan LeMay, in which the lead John Wayne-based character, named Amos Edwards, is inspired by James Parker (Gwynne lists the LeMay book in his bibliography). It is interesting, as Gwynne notes, that James is not known to have had contact with Cynthia when she was finally returned to her family years later.

That event was made possible by the "Battle of Pease River" in December of 1860. By that time, Cynthia, now named "Nautdah" was living in a large Comanche encampment on Mule Creek. She was the wife of a war chief named Peta Nocona. She had three children, twelve year old Quannah, his ten year old brother Peanut and an infant girl, Prairie Flower. The times were extremely brutal, with Comanches and their allied Kiowas killing civilian families in large numbers. There had been decades of government efforts to pursue and punish the Indians, utilizing the army and the Texas Rangers (whose history is told in fascinating detail by Gwynne). By 1860, the violence was almost unbearable, with Peta Nocona among the most active killers of settlers. An expedition consisting of regular army, Rangers and Indian scouts was sent to Mule Creek after intelligence located the Indians there. By the time the Americans arrived in the area, however, most of the natives had left, with just a few remaining families packing up their belongings to move on.

The Indian village was attacked, and what ensued was what Gwynne calls "more of a butchery than a pitched battle." (p. 176). About sixty men fought about fifteen Indians. Most of the latter were women, who were spared by the Rangers but not by the soldiers. Everything in the camp which was not looted was destroyed. Fleeing Indians were pursued. Among those were Peta Nocona and all of his family. An Indian fighter, later to become a famous Texas politician, Sul Ross, captured Nautdah and her daughter, then caught up with Peta Nocona and killed him. Quanah and his brother were pursued for several days but were able to find sanctuary in a larger village and avoid capture.

Thus began the second captivity of Cynthia Parker and the years-long struggle of her son to grow to manhood without his family. Gwynne points out that those chronicling Cynthia's life over the decades did not fully realize that this second instance in her life of having loved ones killed in her presence, and being torn from her relatives was more cruel than her first captivity. Now she was able to fully fathom her loss, after becoming a functioning adult in, admittedly, a Stone Age society. She had had a life of constant toil, but also had a tribal identity, immersed in the seasonal cycles of the plains and the rituals of the natives, and suddenly that was all gone, to be replaced with a life of being shunted among various Parker relatives, and always being a freakish curiosity to the public at large which sometimes intruded in order to get a look at her.

Quanah would spend years hoping to see his mother again, but she would pass away several years after her daughter died. Gwynne describes how Quanah became notable for his strength and bravery, rising to the status of a war chief as great, or more than, his father attained. This meant of course that he would become a great horseman, warrior, killer of homesteaders and Mexicans, horse stealer, kidnapper. He would enjoy the open warfare rampant on the Texas frontier after the Civil War, but would also live to see the severe diminishment of the numbers of Comanches through disease, and as a result of the U.S. government's new policies of aggressively sending military forces into Indian lands. The plains were becoming denuded of their vast Buffalo herds and the once distinctive identities of separate Comanche bands was becoming muddled. Finally, in June 1875, Quanah, this "hardest of hard cases" (p. 289) surrendered to Colonel Ranald MacKenzie and agreed to live with his family on reservation land at Fort Sill.

The surrender resulted in a new beginning for Qhanah. His distinctive attitude of never looking back allowed, as Gwynne says, this fierce, charismatic, true killer of a warrior to become a tax-paying American citizen, engaging in ranching and herding, and prospering to the extent that he would spend his years in a large house with, eventually, his seven wives and twenty-three children. He would support white adopted children and have white as well as Native American sons-in-law. He would even be a member of his local school board. Several years after his surrender he would be granted permission from his new friend MacKenzie to lead a buffalo hunt for old times sake back in the old hunting grounds, only to find that there was nothing left to hunt.

This was a most extraordinary time, when the West was forever transformed. It has been the subject of great fiction, from the likes of authors such as Alan LeMay, Michael Blake and Larry McMurtry. In this book, S.C. Gwynne provides a non-fiction background of the dangerous Texas frontier that is every bit as interesting to read as any novel of the same subject. ...more

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Apr 08, 2012 Craig Werner rated it did not like it

Shelves: history, native-american

Update: After having read most of Pekka Hamalainen's The Cherokee Empire (review to come fairly soon), I'm knocking this down to one star. Gwynne's simply wrong about huge pieces of the picture. His mis-characterizations of Cherokee culture and politics create a dangerous image. The fact that the book's well written make that all the more problematic. It's going to take a lot of hard work to counter the story he tells.

Original review follows:

The problems start with the title. What the Comanche h ...more

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“Forty years ago my mother died," he said. "She captured by Comanches, nine years old. Love Indian and wild life so well, no want to go back to white folks. All same people anyway, God say. I love my mother.” — 9 likes

“Worst of all was the blizzard. People from the east or west coasts of America may think they have seen a blizzard. Likely they have not. It is almost exclusively a phenomenon of the plains, and got its name on the plains. It entailed wind-driven snow so dense and temperatures so cold that anyone lost in them on the shelterless plains was as good as dead.” — 5 likes

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Preview — Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

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