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A review by careycarpenter
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
4.0
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.