Scan barcode
jaxguillette's review against another edition
There's a particular Victorian understanding of the world and it's people that places British and American culture at the apex of civilization, and everyone else as somewhere behind them on the path to that "more advanced" level. This is the framing that the author uses throughout the book, that the Comanche subjects were uncivilized and savage, people who didn't "advance" to agriculture. This might be something one could look past in a book from 1910, but not in one from 100 years later. He also portrays American settlers as "steely-eyed" people who "knew in their hearts that the land was there". I don't doubt that he did his research, and that what he says has its basis in fact, but the framing and the interpretation are just so grating at best, and inspire a lack of confidence at worst. I'd rather spend my time with a different book on the same subject. Quite disappointing.
bartlebee's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Wow! What a read! Fascinating historical moments read out like a fiction novel which will have you turning pages. Obviously, incredibly sad and filled with much horror, but also unbelievable. A great aid in improving my understanding of the comaches and the forceful expansion of the white settlers
careycarpenter's review against another edition
4.0
Fascinating history of the Comanche Indians from the 1840’s through 1890’s when they were forced out of their warrior lifestyle onto reservations. There is a lot death scenes of torture, scalping, brutality - a lot. The book kind of reads like this...the Comanche warriors raided a camp and then the next day, the raided camp took revenge on the Comanche’s and tried to kill them all, then the next day the Comanche warriors raided another camp, and so on.
I wish the author would have stayed chronologically linear but he jumps back and forth between decades in telling his stories which is not as smooth for the reader.
This also felt like history told through a white man’s perspective but I guess that exactly what it was. There aren’t any Comanche Indians left to tell it and there is very little recorded information from the Comanche perspective.
If anyone else wants to read it and discuss more, I’d love to. There is a lot to discuss and unpack from this history. This seems like a good book club pick in my opinion.
I wish the author would have stayed chronologically linear but he jumps back and forth between decades in telling his stories which is not as smooth for the reader.
This also felt like history told through a white man’s perspective but I guess that exactly what it was. There aren’t any Comanche Indians left to tell it and there is very little recorded information from the Comanche perspective.
If anyone else wants to read it and discuss more, I’d love to. There is a lot to discuss and unpack from this history. This seems like a good book club pick in my opinion.
rileypeper's review against another edition
3.0
This book was packed with stories and information that I loved discovering. The history between the while settlers and the Native Americans is truly bothersome to me, as I'm sure it is with everyone who takes the time to learn about the nuanced past of this land. I can totally see why the Comanche tribe acted they way they did towards the settlers, and I can understand why the white settlers acted the way they did towards the Comanches. My final analysis, for what its worth, is that both parties were acting in bad faith, but both were also acting out a world they were living in, and comparing it to today is not quite fair.
Gwynne did a fantastic job as smearing the dividing line between black and white in order to create shades of grey that more accurately describe United States history.
Gwynne did a fantastic job as smearing the dividing line between black and white in order to create shades of grey that more accurately describe United States history.
rachaelkei's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-paced
2.5
Very conflicted. I never learned anything about Comanches before but the author kept calling them primitive, barbaric while describing complex cultural and technological feats like surgery, communicating across the plains using pictographs, dances, horizontal political structures. I thought the book must have been written a long time ago. I was shocked that it was written in 2011. Would have liked more Native American accounts in the bibliography, though I understand those are less likely to survive.