Empire of the Summer Moon
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Review
"In "Empire of the Summer Moon", Sam Swynne has given us a rich, vividly detailed rendering of an important era in our history and of two great men, Quanah Parker and Ranald Slidel Mackenzie, whose struggles did much to define it."
-Larry McMurtry
Book Description
The New York Times bestselling history of the Comanches in the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
54 of 56 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a truly excellent book that is well researched, easy to read, and that pulls no punches about the expansion of the Commanche empire and its inevitable collision with the expending United States in the mid 19th century.
If you believe that the Native Americans/Indians/Human Beings/The People were the lentil eating 'hippies' that they have been protrayed as for the past forty years you won't be comfortable with this book. The Commanches murdered, gang raped and stole from Anglos, Hispanics and their fellow Native Amercicans without fear or favour for approximately 200 years. In the process they created a massive empire across what is now Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas displacing thousands of their fellow Native Americans to less hospitable lands in the process. S C Gywnne documents this about as thoroughly as we now can. He then moves on to their relations with the Spanish, Mexicans and Americans. This era is better documented and Gynne relates a war that was red in tooth and claw on both sides, culminating in a series of treaties which neither side seems to have had any intention of adhering to.
Interwoven with this narrative are the stories of Cynthia Ann and Quanah Parker. Cynthia Ann was abducted by the Commanches at the age of nine and became fully assimilated into their culture. So much so that one she was 'rescued' with her daughter 23 years later she wasunable to re-enter white society and both mother and daughter died within a few years. The fact that they were both treated as a 19th centuruy freak show seems to have accelerated this procress. Son Quanah on the other hand was far more successful. Born a Commanche he wasa successful war chief and after the collapse of their culture became asuccessful businessman, philanthropist and politicician.
An excellent book. Buy it!
If you believe that the Native Americans/Indians/Human Beings/The People were the lentil eating 'hippies' that they have been protrayed as for the past forty years you won't be comfortable with this book. The Commanches murdered, gang raped and stole from Anglos, Hispanics and their fellow Native Amercicans without fear or favour for approximately 200 years. In the process they created a massive empire across what is now Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas displacing thousands of their fellow Native Americans to less hospitable lands in the process. S C Gywnne documents this about as thoroughly as we now can. He then moves on to their relations with the Spanish, Mexicans and Americans. This era is better documented and Gynne relates a war that was red in tooth and claw on both sides, culminating in a series of treaties which neither side seems to have had any intention of adhering to.
Interwoven with this narrative are the stories of Cynthia Ann and Quanah Parker. Cynthia Ann was abducted by the Commanches at the age of nine and became fully assimilated into their culture. So much so that one she was 'rescued' with her daughter 23 years later she wasunable to re-enter white society and both mother and daughter died within a few years. The fact that they were both treated as a 19th centuruy freak show seems to have accelerated this procress. Son Quanah on the other hand was far more successful. Born a Commanche he wasa successful war chief and after the collapse of their culture became asuccessful businessman, philanthropist and politicician.
An excellent book. Buy it!
36 of 38 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Although Quanah Parker doesn't really come into his own until the last 40 pages, Empire of the Summer Moon is a fascinating compendium of everybody's sins - from the bloodthirsty hunter-gatherers to the incompetent armed forces and xenophobic, hypocritical settlers in between.
From time to time, we in the 21st century need to be reminded that buffalo roamed the endless plains, in herds seventy miles long and five miles wide, That tribes of natives lived off them and commanded huge tracts of land - as any self respecting hunter-gatherer from bald eagle to mountain lion must to survive. That everyone was brutal, thoughtless and cruel comes with the territory. The totality of this makes the book continually compelling.
What I liked best was that over the course of 250 pages, I got used to the idea of the endless plains (a few thousand Comanches unfathomably controlling more than 120 million acres), the criminally brutal weather, and constant movement of people, to fight and to survive. And then in one brief sentence, not highlighted or separated, Gwynne takes it all away again:
"Within a few years, barbed wire would stretch the length and breadth of the plains" (p. 276)
It put everything in perspective, and made the decline and fall of the Comanche bands all that more inevitable, necessary, and tragic.
Extraordinarily well documented, well written and well laid out, this is a fine read.
From time to time, we in the 21st century need to be reminded that buffalo roamed the endless plains, in herds seventy miles long and five miles wide, That tribes of natives lived off them and commanded huge tracts of land - as any self respecting hunter-gatherer from bald eagle to mountain lion must to survive. That everyone was brutal, thoughtless and cruel comes with the territory. The totality of this makes the book continually compelling.
What I liked best was that over the course of 250 pages, I got used to the idea of the endless plains (a few thousand Comanches unfathomably controlling more than 120 million acres), the criminally brutal weather, and constant movement of people, to fight and to survive. And then in one brief sentence, not highlighted or separated, Gwynne takes it all away again:
"Within a few years, barbed wire would stretch the length and breadth of the plains" (p. 276)
It put everything in perspective, and made the decline and fall of the Comanche bands all that more inevitable, necessary, and tragic.
Extraordinarily well documented, well written and well laid out, this is a fine read.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is a facinating look at the rise and fall of the Commanche nation. Its intensely exciting and sympathetic to Native Americans in general and the Commanche in particular. However it is also intensely violent, taking a clear sighted, almost forensic, look at the practices of Commanche war-making, particularly their routine use of rape and torture.
(Speaking as a Celt myself) the author draws a not unreasonable comparison of Comanche warfare to Celtic warfare of a bygone era to undermine any racist presumptions about the origins of warriors cruelty. He also notes the intensely political purpose behind Comanche terrorism on settlers and buffalo hunters, and that Texan warfare was itself brutal and racist. However while he spends time describing Comanche violence in some detail, he frequently skates across comparable white violence - explictly avoiding a deep discussion of the Sand Creek massacre for example.
The author appears to like and admire Quanah, particularly the Quanah of later years who struggled to lead his people in peace after years of violence. Quanah described himself as having been a "bad man" but in later life he appears to have become a warm and generous one with little animosity to whites. However the author's real hero in this book seems to be the enigmatic Col MacKenzie, Quanah's nemisis, rather than Quanah himself. One should be grateful to the author for bringing this fascinating man and his role in the violence of the era to greater public attention: for all his crankiness he stands in a much more positive light that the strange, and more infamous, figure of Custer.
For those interested in Hollywood history the author notes how the story of Cynthia Ann Parker, Quanah's mother, was the inspiration for arguably John Ford's greatest Western, The Searchers. However he doesn't mention that MacKenzie seems to have been Ford's model for Lt Col Kirby Yorke in Rio Grande, another one of John Wayne's classic roles: the climax of that film - the Colonel leading his troopers into Mexico to attack the Apache on Sheridan's orders - is something that the author mentions MacKenzie actually did when not fighting the Comanche.
It is a book that can comfortably sit alongside Dee Brown's classic "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee" and which complements it, providing greater detail to some aspects of that book and a deeper understanding of the politics and attitudes of white America to Native Americans in the course of their conquest.
(Speaking as a Celt myself) the author draws a not unreasonable comparison of Comanche warfare to Celtic warfare of a bygone era to undermine any racist presumptions about the origins of warriors cruelty. He also notes the intensely political purpose behind Comanche terrorism on settlers and buffalo hunters, and that Texan warfare was itself brutal and racist. However while he spends time describing Comanche violence in some detail, he frequently skates across comparable white violence - explictly avoiding a deep discussion of the Sand Creek massacre for example.
The author appears to like and admire Quanah, particularly the Quanah of later years who struggled to lead his people in peace after years of violence. Quanah described himself as having been a "bad man" but in later life he appears to have become a warm and generous one with little animosity to whites. However the author's real hero in this book seems to be the enigmatic Col MacKenzie, Quanah's nemisis, rather than Quanah himself. One should be grateful to the author for bringing this fascinating man and his role in the violence of the era to greater public attention: for all his crankiness he stands in a much more positive light that the strange, and more infamous, figure of Custer.
For those interested in Hollywood history the author notes how the story of Cynthia Ann Parker, Quanah's mother, was the inspiration for arguably John Ford's greatest Western, The Searchers. However he doesn't mention that MacKenzie seems to have been Ford's model for Lt Col Kirby Yorke in Rio Grande, another one of John Wayne's classic roles: the climax of that film - the Colonel leading his troopers into Mexico to attack the Apache on Sheridan's orders - is something that the author mentions MacKenzie actually did when not fighting the Comanche.
It is a book that can comfortably sit alongside Dee Brown's classic "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee" and which complements it, providing greater detail to some aspects of that book and a deeper understanding of the politics and attitudes of white America to Native Americans in the course of their conquest.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
interesting USA history
An excellent history of SW USA covering mostly conflict with the Comanche tribe. Contains interesting facts about Indian life and the settlement of SW of the USA. Read more
Published 3 days ago by A. Roberts
A very interesting book but traditional in outlook
An interesting and well written book about a part of history which is little known outside Texas and the US. Read more
Published 4 days ago by Stephenwunder
Comanche history
Cannot recommend this enough. Have not quite finished it but dread coming to the end of it. Even if one knows a bit of the history of the Comanches this book will add so many more... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Nan
Eurocentric to a fault
I agree with the previous reviewer when she states "A well written but a sensationalist and extremely culturally biased history of the Comanche, littered with inaccuracies, full of... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Atomsplitter
Get it!
This is just a great read, whether you are interested in the history of the American west, the Comanche or Indians in general, this is just such a terrific story and so well... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Martyn Beardsley
A not unsympathetic account of "savages" who were certainly not noble.
As the author himself states in this book, the Comanche empire was not really an empire in the conventional sense. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Grr
US history at its best
Evocative and interesting account of the lives of some of the First Nation people of the USA for those of us who like to delve into stories behind the films.
Published 5 months ago by stardust
A very good read
For anyone who is interested in native people and civilizations this is an excellent read.The actions are not too detailed as there were so many of them and there does not appear... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Robert Howard
The real story of the west
This is a book that gives you the real facts as to how the west was won.I could not put it down from the moment I started reading it.
Published 5 months ago by goody
a brilliant read
I had never read anything about the Comanches other than in Bury my Heart in Wounded Knee this is a truly wonderful story about the plains Indians ,highly recommended
Published 6 months ago by P. R. Douglas
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