Book Description
Praise for Blood and Thunder
“Kit Carson’s role in the conquest of the Navajo during and after the Civil War remains one of the most dramatic and significant episodes in the history of the American West. Hampton Sides portrays Carson in the larger context of the conquest of the entire West, including his frequent and often lethal encounters with hostile Native Americans. Unusually, Sides gives full voice to Indian leaders themselves about their trials and tribulations in their dealings with the whites. Here is a national hero on the level of Daniel Boone, presented with all of his flaws and virtues, in the context of American people’s belief that it was their Manifest Destiny to occupy the entire West.”
—Howard Lamar, Sterling Professor Emeritus of History, Yale University and editor of The New Encyclopedia of the American West
“The story of the American West has seldom been told with such intimacy and immediacy. Legendary figures like Kit Carson leap to life and history moves at a pulse-pounding pace—sweeping the reader along with it. Hampton Sides is a terrific storyteller.”
—Candice Millard, author of The River of Doubt
“Hampton Sides doesn't just write a book, he transports the reader to another time and place. With his keen sense of drama and his crackling writing style, this master storyteller has bequeathed us a majestic history of the Old West.”
—James Bradley, author of Flags of Our Fathers and Flyboys
“Blood and Thunder is a big-hearted book whose subject is as expansive as they come. Hampton Sides tackles it with naked pleasure and narrative cunning: In his telling, the vast saga of America’s westward push has a logical center. The dusty town of Santa Fe becomes the nexus around which swirl the fortunes and strategies of a mixed set of serious overachievers, from Kit Carson, the original mountain man, to James K. Polk, the enigmatic president whose achievements, in the dreaded name of Manifest Destiny, were almost biblical in scope. Sides is alive to the exuberance and alert to the tragedy of the taking of the West.”
—Russell Shorto, author of Island at the Center of the World
“For a huge percentage of us immigrant Americans (those whose ancestors arrived after 1492), Hampton Sides fills a gaping hole in our knowledge of American history—a vivid account of how ‘The New Men’ swept away the thriving civilizations of the Native Americans in their conquest of the West.”
—Tony Hillerman
"BLOOD AND THUNDER is a balanced, thoughtful summary of the American conquistadors in the 19th century Southwest. Hampton Sides has re-created violent events and such inflammatory figures as Kit Carson without bias. Carefully researched, thoroughly enjoyable."
-Evan S. Connell, author of SON OF THE MORNING STAR, CUSTER AND THE LITTLE BIGHORN
A Magnificent History of How the West Was Really Won—a Sweeping Tale of Shame and Glory
In the fall of 1846 the venerable Navajo warrior Narbona, greatest of his people’s chieftains, looked down upon the small town of Santa Fe, the stronghold of the Mexican settlers he had been fighting his whole long life. He had come to see if the rumors were true—if an army of blue-suited soldiers had swept in from the East and utterly defeated his ancestral enemies. As Narbona gazed down on the battlements and cannons of a mighty fort the invaders had built, he realized his foes had been vanquished—but what did the arrival of these “New Men” portend for the Navajo?
Narbona could not have known that “The Army of the West,” in the midst of the longest march in American military history, was merely the vanguard of an inexorable tide fueled by a self-righteous ideology now known as “Manifest Destiny.” For twenty years the Navajo, elusive lords of a huge swath of mountainous desert and pasturelands, would ferociously resist the flood of soldiers and settlers who wished to change their ancient way of life or destroy them.
Hampton Sides’s extraordinary book brings the history of the American conquest of the West to ringing life. It is a tale with many heroes and villains, but as is found in the best history, the same person might be both. At the center of it all stands the remarkable figure of Kit Carson—the legendary trapper, scout, and soldier who embodies all the contradictions and ambiguities of the American experience in the West. Brave and clever, beloved by his contemporaries, Carson was an illiterate mountain man who twice married Indian women and understood and respected the tribes better than any other American alive. Yet he was also a cold-blooded killer who willingly followed orders tantamount to massacre. Carson’s almost unimaginable exploits made him a household name when they were written up in pulp novels known as “blood-and-thunders,” but now that name is a bitter curse for contemporary Navajo, who cannot forget his role in the travails of their ancestors.
Customer Reviews:
Fremont's Reputation.......2007-10-14
This is an excellent book except for the Fremont-bashing that seems to be fashionable. It is especially distressing that the material about Fremont came from a non-historical work with no scholarly background entitled "A Newer World". The author would have been better advised to supply his own supporting references. That is enough of a reason to knock off a star.
one of the best.......2007-10-13
If you have any interest in American History please read this book. We read the entire book outloud, quite an undertaking, so I'm glad to see that is available as an audiobook. The writing is riveting, the bibliography reassuring, the story enlightening. This book is a springboard into the conquest of the Western United States and will give you new eyes if and when traveling through these areas. Read the book.
Thoroughly engrossing biography of Kit Carson.......2007-10-12
This is an excellent biography of a famous American pioneer--Kit Carson. What sets it apart is its humane treatment of a complex figure. Carson appears to have been the "real deal," not a manufactured hero.
The book proceeds by interweaving several story lines, which can be somewhat confusing at times but, in the end, this serves the author well. Among the story lines--Kit Carson's exploits, the Navajo leader Narbona's story, General Stephen Kearney's episodes, and so on.
Kit Carson's role--from trapper to hunter to scout to military officer--is the glue that holds this book together. In the process, the reader learns a great deal about the events of the 1830s through 1860s that transformed the United States. The Mexican War dramatically expanded the size of the country; the American conflicts with the Indian nations opened new territories for settlement and economic development; the Civil War ended slavery (although, ironically, perhaps not in the southwest, as Native Americans sometimes served a similar role after the Civil War); the West was opened for development.
What humanizes this book is the treatment of Carson. He was sometimes mercurial (with an occasional burst of temper); he was a person of action, and he sometimes was cruel and brutal; he was also a person of honor; he had a perception of the larger picture in the West, and could see that white aggression was the real problem--not marauding Indians.
On a personal note, the book traces Carson's family lives (he had at least two real families, one with a native American wife), his struggle to be a good husband and father while he was off on one adventure or another most of his life.
This is a strong biography which is set in a larger context. It is well worth looking at.
Reads almost like a novel!.......2007-10-12
I first encountered this book when I heard the author speak at our local bookstore. I am a history lover and wanted to know if this man could pull of another interesting book on American History. I had a copy of the book ready and took copious notes on the blank pages in the back. The author was fascinating to listen to.
Since then, I have read the book thoroughly and found it read almost like a novel. Each chapter led you to want to read on.
I have purchased copies as gifts for friends and even gave a copy to my American Indian History professor and he was enthralled.
Good work. Loved it. You will, too.
Blood and Thunder.......2007-10-09
This is a highly readable and comprehensive account of the adult life and times of Kit Carson and the people/places he touched. It's not a biography, but a series of vignettes documenting his involvement in a variety of professions -- from mountain man to military man -- as the needs of the West evolved. There's a great deal of information about Carson's contemporaries as well. I read the book with a map of New Mexico at hand to more closely identify the places mentioned. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Western history, including the several battles of the Civil War fought in New Mexico.
Average customer rating:
- A Fantastic Read
- One of the best books I've ever read
- History with the eye of the fiction author
- Politics disguised as history
- huge disappointment.
|
Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn
Evan S. Connell
Manufacturer: North Point Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Old West
| 19th Century
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Expansionism
| 19th Century
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| State & Local
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Westerns
| Genre Fiction
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Mystery
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Fiction Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Mystery & Thriller Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
ASIN: 0865475105 |
Amazon.com
On June 25, 1876, Gen. George Armstrong Custer and some 200 cavalrymen under his command blundered into a coulee along the banks of Montana's Little Bighorn River. They never came out; several thousand Cheyenne, Sioux, and Arapaho warriors saw to that. The name and the event of the Little Bighorn have subsequently entered into American mythology, reverberating throughout the nation's history. Custer's famous demise has yielded thousands of books, and Son of the Morning Star is exceptional among them: part anthropological study of Plains Indian life, part military history, and part character study of the principal actors in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Evan Connell's work presents the first truly balanced account of Custer's career.
Book Description
Custer's Last Stand is among the most enduring events in American history--more than one hundred years after the fact, books continue to be written and people continue to argue about even the most basic details surrounding the Little Bighorn. Evan S. Connell, whom Joyce Carol Oates has described as "one of our most interesting and intelligent American writers," wrote what continues to be the most reliable--and compulsively readable--account of the subject. Connell makes good use of his meticulous research and novelist's eye for the story and detail to re-vreate the heroism, foolishness, and savagery of this crucial chapter in the history of the West.
Customer Reviews:
A Fantastic Read.......2007-06-22
Evan S. Connell doesn't care about preconceptions about what happened at Little Big Horn. Instead he weaves a narrative that explores and explodes every myth and legend surrounding the battle and everything leading up to it. The writing is absorbing and magnificent, and Mr. Connell takes his time to explore the lives of not only the leading participants, Custer and Sitting Bull, Gall and Sherman, but digs down in the dirt of the geography and even the lives of what most would consider secondary characters. He even lays down a fascinating side story about the fate of Custer's horse.
One of the best books I've ever read.......2007-05-22
I didn't find this book hard to follow at all. Even when I was sleepy I knew what I was reading about. It is the characters in this book and the back drop that brings this story alive. Connell does a great job of bringing unknown and well known characters to life and giving them more than just a name and place of death. What a story this is when you add up all the sum parts. And, I was able to get a bigger picture than just the death of Custard from reading this great book.
History with the eye of the fiction author.......2007-05-16
This is not a traditional history book and it seems that those who object seem to do so primarally on those grounds. There is no question that this book does not read or even flow as a typical history which in my view is a tribute to the creative author and a a risk taking publisher both of whom deserve high praise.
It is the reader rather than a historian who benefit from this treatment. The myriad of detail adds color and depth to the men's characters in a way that no regular history book has ever done. Yes the detail slows the narative and yes the author is all over the place, retrospection, current event, future writing all withing a page or two and yet somehow the whole thing holds together and the information is assimilated in a lasting and meaningful way.
The reasonings are so logical and fresh given the years and speculation and outright lies that they shine from the page. One example - why was Custer not scalped. Reasons given over the years run from Indian admiration for his courage to contempt. The author's take, Custer's hair was cut short for the campain, he was also going bald. In short his scalp was so unatractive as a trophy, that no one bothered.
The author engages in speculation and unlike regular historians, he readily admits when he is doing so. For example he openly shared his puzzlement as to why certain versions of Custer's death are rejected by one generation only to be viewed as the most credible by furture generations.
All and all this is a wonderful read and anyone with an interest in this history would benefit even if some of the facts shared conflict with previous ideas.
Custer remains an inegma but this book comes as close as we are ever likely to get to understanding him and the men who served with him.
Politics disguised as history.......2007-01-23
A morose and spiritless rendition of the plains Indian Wars, told from the perspective of a late 20th Century San Francisco mentality that sees nothing good in America, past or present. Contains a total of four or five pages worth of vivid and memorable prose - the "funnel of a tornado" image is unforgettable - nearly half of which is repeated on the jacket blurbs and photo captions. The bulk of the book consists of endless excerpts from hundreds of primary sources, most of which are not cited. (The bibliography is the most rewarding aspect of the book.) Clearly a fan of the Kurosawa-Rashomon school of epistemology, Connell repeatedly wastes the reader's time with hypothetical scenarios concerning facts and events of little importance, only to inform the reader in the end that we can't know for certain, and anyway it doesn't really matter. One assumes that had Connell been born a 19th Century Sioux, he would have spent his time castigating the tribe for having stolen the lands of whatever tribes claimed it before them. The one thing Connell is certain of, it seems, is that anything, even the savage inter-tribal warfare that went on for tens of millennia before the "wasichus" came on the scene, was preferable to the way of life that replaced it. This reviewer guesses that more than a few Native Americans past and present would take issue with such a conclusion, but what do they know.
huge disappointment........2006-10-21
i have had this book in my library for a long time and very much looked forward to reading it. a book that got rave reviews by critics, an outstanding novelist (evan s connell) writing about the legendary downfall of custer at little bighorn, how could i go wrong with this one. well, i guess that there is no such thing as a sure thing, because i found this book way too long & way too tedious. the author digresses all throughout the book, dropping the narrative and taking off on dull useless sidetracks that should never have been included. dozens and dozens of characters are introduced that you will never rememeber (and will never need to remember). strange and poor organization make this book a real dud. too bad.
Book Description
Frederick Jackson Turner is often considered to be the most influential American historian of the century, and his views continue to shape the controversial field of Western American history. In this book, John Mack Faragher introduces and comments on ten of Turner`s most significant essays, concluding with a comment on the recent debate over Turner`s legacy and his effect on Americans` understanding of their national character.
Customer Reviews:
Turner's "Frontier Thesis" Unfiltered.......2006-08-04
This is a very useful collection of ten essays by University of Wisconsin/Harvard University historian Frederick Jackson Turner written through out his career. Edited and introduced by John Mack Faragher, this book is a very fine entrée point to the thought of Turner. The first of the essays published here is Turner's seminal work, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," an essay that defined a whole field of research. Read at the 1893 annual meeting of the American Historical Association in Chicago, this paper has exerted an enormously powerful force on the historiography of the United States, in no small measure because of its powerful statement of American exceptionalism. Turner took as his cue an observation in the 1890 U.S. census that the American frontier had for the first time closed. He noted, "Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development."
Turner insisted that the frontier made Americans American, gave the nation its democratic character, and ensured the virtues of self-reliance, community, egalitarianism, and the promise of justice. He noted that cheap or even free land provided a "safety valve" that protected the nation against uprisings of the poverty-stricken and malcontented. The frontier also produced a people with "coarseness and strength...acuteness and inquisitiveness, that practical and inventive turn of mind...[full of] restless and nervous energy...that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom." It gave the people of the United States, in essence, virtually every positive quality they have ever possessed.
Despite criticisms, through at least the 1950s vision of the frontier reigned supreme as an underlying definer of American character. It conjured up an image of self-reliant Americans moving westward in sweeping waves of discovery, exploration, conquest, and settlement of an "untamed wilderness." And in the process of movement, the Europeans who settled North America became an indigenous American people. In Turner's characterization, the frontier concept has always carried with it the ideals of optimism, democracy, and meritocracy. It also summoned in the popular mind a wide range of vivid and memorable tales of heroism, each a morally justified step toward the modern democratic state. The popular conception of "westering" and the settlement of the American continent by Europeans has been a powerful metaphor for the uniqueness of America in the twentieth century.
As explained in Faragher's introduction, in the latter half of the twentieth century historians increasingly questioned Turner's frontier ideal, arguing that it reduced the complexity of events to a relatively static morality play, avoided matters that challenged or contradicted the myth, viewed Americans moving westward as inherently good and their opponents as evil, and ignored the cultural context of westward migration. They determined that Turner's "Frontier Thesis" was excessively ethnocentric, nationalistic, and somewhat jingoistic. His rhetoric excluded more than it covered, moreover, failing to do justice to diverse western people and events.
In addition to the title essay, this excellent collection of the essays of Frederick Jackson Turner includes such articles as "Social Forces in American History," "The Western and American Ideals," and "The Significance of Sections in American History."
This is an indispensable source for the thinking of Frederick Jackson Turner and his influence on thinking about the history of the American West.
Book Description
In Oh What a Slaughter, Larry McMurtry has written a unique, brilliant, and searing history of the bloody massacres that marked -- and marred -- the settling of the American West in the nineteenth century, and which still provoke immense controversy today.
Here are the true stories of the West's most terrible massacres -- Sacramento River, Mountain Meadows, Sand Creek, Marias River, Camp Grant, and Wounded Knee, among others. These massacres involved Americans killing Indians, but also Indians killing Americans, and, in the case of the hugely controversial Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857, Mormons slaughtering a party of American settlers, including women and children.
McMurtry's evocative descriptions of these events recall their full horror, and the deep, constant apprehension and dread endured by both pioneers and Indians. By modern standards the death tolls were often small -- Custer's famous defeat at Little Big Horn in 1876 was the only encounter to involve more than two hundred dead -- yet in the thinly populated West of that time, the violent extinction of a hundred people had a colossal impact on all sides. Though the perpetrators often went unpunished, many guilty and traumatized men felt compelled to tell and retell the horrors they had committed. From letters and diaries, McMurtry has created a moving and swiftly paced narrative, as memorable in its way as such classics as Evan S. Connell's Son of the Morning Star and Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
In Larry McMurtry's own words:
"I have visited all but one of these famous massacre sites -- the Sacramento River massacre of 1846 is so forgotten that its site near the northern California village of Vina can only be approximated. It is no surprise to report that none of the sites are exactly pleasant places to be, though the Camp Grant site north of Tucson does have a pretty community college nearby. In general, the taint that followed the terror still lingers and is still powerful enough to affect locals who happen to live nearby. None of the massacres were effectively covered up, though the Sacramento River massacre was overlooked for a very long time.
"But the lesson, if it is a lesson, is that blood -- in time, and, often, not that much time -- will out. In case after case the dead have managed to assert a surprising potency.
"The deep, constant apprehension, which neither the pioneers nor the Indians escaped, has, it seems to me, been too seldom factored in by historians of the settlement era, though certainly it saturates the diary-literature of the pioneers, particularly the diary-literature produced by frontier women, who were, of course, the likeliest candidates for rapine and kidnap."
Customer Reviews:
A Narrow Audience.......2007-07-23
Mr. McMurtry has written an extended essay/reflection on "pre-emptive stikes", the moral code we live by as a nation, and then tied it briefly to our current policies in IRAQ and the aftermath of 9/11. His subject is several famous, and not so famous massacres in western lore, and his primary purpose is to draw moral conclusions that connect us to today's events. He doesn't really go into any real explaination of the massacres, so you will need to have know about them from other sources in order to understand his message. I read this book just after completing Hampton Sides' "Blood and Thunder", which gave me the background of most of the massacres mentioned. Had I read these books in reverse order, I wouldn't have understood what Mr. McMurty was trying to say at all.
Genocide in the Old West.......2006-12-01
Genocide in the Old West
Most have heard the expression "the only good Indian is a dead Indian". Some have heard "you must get the nits if you want to get the lice" the policy used to justify they massacre of women and children. Few may realize the extent to which the United States practiced and encouraged genocide against Native Americans during the 19th century and how closely our current conflict in Iraq parallels United States policy during the Indian Wars.
This book is no historical treatise but it is a powerful illustration of the conflict between cultures and the consequences of might making right based upon the six largest massacres in the American West. We learn that the killing of Native Americans was not a crime until 1824 and then was only made a crime because politicians feared the unfettered massacre of Indians by whites, much as one my shoot coyotes or whites, might incite an uprising of Native Americans which the government could not control.
McMurtry succinctly sets the tone and feeling of the settlers, ranchers, Indian Agents, Military and Native Americans in this timeless tragedy. He notes white perpetrators of massacres were not brought to justice. He also notes the insanity of inflicting death and destruction on a group because one or two members may have misbehaved.
Historians of this subject will find his reports simplistic and shallow. But the overview and analysis he provides of the motivating forces, political justifications and sheer horror of that period provide an invaluable insight to the dangers of inflicting our form of government and morals on a people used to living in a different way.
The book contains an excellent Bibliography and intriguing references to historical literature that all of us would love to read. This book is well worth reading for anyone interested in Native Americans, American Foreign Policy as implemented by force, or the American West.
Fascinating Writing.......2006-07-14
Some have argued about the length of this book. I think fine writing is fine writing whether we are talking about a poem of 4 lines or a novel of 1,000 pages.
I am really enjoying this book, and would have been happy to read 500 more pages if they were of the quality of this short book. However, in the summer, I appreciate the brevity of this book since I might not have tackled it if it were long.
What do I like? I find many insightful comments although as McMurtry clearly points out: we will never truly find out exactly what happened in these massacres but who could really know the truth about a massacre since each one is terribly messy and each one causes intense, complicated emotional responses in the people who were massacred and the people who did the butchering.
If he talks about spin, how the winners tried to appear heroic and downplay the nastiness of their deeds, we should not be surprised because recent history is being besieged by spin doctors.
Just as he says and as we can see if we think of the Sudan, Bosnia, Rwanda, etc., no massacre stands in isolation but is a part of a history of animosity between the two groups. A book which attempted to give the history of the struggles and misunderstandings which led up to these massacres and which later followed as consequences flowing from reactions to these massacres would be very long indeed.
Two other things in this book which I enjoyed were the wonderful photos and the interesting little-known details about some of the colorful characters involved in these little histories.
Who will forget the portrait of Kit Carson as a horribly efficient Indian-killing machine who felt very sad at the end of his life since he understood the Indians better than anyone else? Also, I find the whole history of the quick extermination of the Indians which lived in California (including the very-little-known Maidu, Wintu and Yana Tribes) to be revealing.
A short but worthy addition.......2006-06-15
Adopting a conversational tone McMurtry briefly (161 pages) explores six 'big massacres' of the Old West: Sacramento River, Mountain Meadows, Sand Creek, Marias River, Camp Grant, and Wounded Knee. He also briefly considers the Fetterman and Custer defeats.
McMurtry's treatment is even-handed. That even-handedness allows his observation of the essential fairness of General Crook, which the Indian leaders acknowledged, as demonstrated by his observation that the Sioux should take the money for the Black Hills because the whites were surely going to take them. Evenhandedness also required inclusion of the observation by Red Cloud that the whites had made many promises but only kept one: "They said they would take our land and they took it."
He develops the idea that the ever present 'apprehension' of violence was felt both by whites and Indians and that the apprehension all too often led to the actuality. Moreover, in general white frontiersmen wanted the Indians' land and were going to have it. Whites had the numbers and the technology. In all of the massacres with the exception of Wounded Knee the whites set out with the purpose of killing all the Indians they could lay hands on. As McMurtry relates civilized society often quickly disowned these deeds as 'simple murder'.
Mountain Meadows stands out an as exception in that Mormons led some Paiutes to attack and virtually wipe out a white wagon train.
The stories of these massacres are told in more detail elsewhere, but McMurtry's book is an interesting addition to the Western library that considers all of them within the confines of one short work.
Oh what a Slaughter.......2006-06-06
Contrary to the dust jacket this slight 160 page non-fiction book by well-known novelist Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove) is neither unique nor brilliant. It is a small rendering of six or seven Indian massacres, with little detail and even less historical context. Aside from allowing the author the opportunity to insert his own otherwise irrelevant political opinions on current events, for example, at one point comparing Plains Indians detained on reservations to "Afghans imprisoned" by President Bush (for terrorist activities) the book serves no real purpose for the reader. It doesn't really describe the topic in any real fashion. I concur with the reviewer who thought it seemed like a bunch of research notes pinned together and published as a book.
In the final analysis one must ask the question "what does this book add to the literature?" The unfortunate answer is "little to nothing". The author should stick to writing novels. Libraries are filled with books that no one reads.
Book Description
This vivid, panoramic history continues the exciting story begun in Wilderness at Dawn, tracing through the eyes--and adventures--of ordinary people the saga of the settlement of the United States. "Embraces the texture and the drama of the West in all its heartbreak and heroism".--Booklist. Photos & maps.
Customer Reviews:
The Birth and Adolescence of a Nation!.......1999-08-23
I have never read a book by Ted Morgan (or his previous incarnation as Sacha de Gramont - note the anagram!) that was not well-written, entertaining and highly informative. He writes about a very wide range of topics and it seems to be impossible to guess what his next work will deal with. This excellent book describes the process whereby the areas west of the Appalacians that became United States post-1800 were initially acquired, how they were incorporated as Territories and finally, how they achieved full statehood. The sequence would be interesting, but presumably familiar, for most US citizens, but for the non-North American the story is totally fascinating. Morgan does not just deal with the official governmental processes but also with the human and sociological aspects of the settlement and development of these vast areas. He intertwines a huge number of personal reminiscences - ranging from the heroic to the tawdry, from the tragic to the hilarious, from the inspiring to the outright indecent - into his narrative, such that it the story comes alive. Having read the book right through once with great pleasure, I find it afterwards to be a splendid tome to dip into at spare moments. It's an excellent bedside companion or a gift for a historically-oriented friend. Practically every page is a delight.
Book Description
This entirely new edition of a famous classic has glorious new photographs—many never before seen—as well as a revised and expanded text that deepens our understanding of the vital role played by African American men and women on our early frontiers.Inspired by a conversation that William Loren Katz had with Langston Hughes, The Black West presents long-neglected stories of daring pioneers such as Nat Love, a.k.a. Deadwood Dick, Mary Fields, a.k.a. Stagecoach Mary, Cranford Goldsby, a.k.a. Cherokee Bill—and a host of other intrepid men and women who marched into the wilderness alongside Chief Osceola, Billy the Kid, and Geronimo.Featuring captivating narratives and photographs (many from the author’s world-famous collection), The Black West enriches and deepens our stirring frontier saga. From slave runaways during the colonial era, to the journeys of Lewis and Clark, to the charge at San Juan Hill, Katz vividly recounts the crucial contributions African Americans made during scores of frontier encounters. With its stirring pictures and vivid eyewitness accounts, The Black West is an exhilarating treasure trove.
Customer Reviews:
The Black West:: A Documentary & Pictoral History of the African American Role in the Westward Expansion of the US.......2007-01-03
This book is great and very informative. It tells how the West was won with the help of African-Americans, the things they had to endure during slavery and after freedom and how they establish productive communities.
Excellent!.......2006-02-04
Just a collection of informative vignettes detailing the Brothers and Sisters contributions to the creation of the Old West. Yet another piece of the historical African puzzle that everyone (but especially Blacks) need to become aware of.
How the West was really won........2006-01-04
THE BLACK WEST is a revised edition of an older book by William Loren Katz. He gives us a definitive history, not only of the Black people who helped settle the West, but also of the machinations of the United States to steal the land from the indigenous people. He includes the brawl with Santa Ana of Mexico regarding Texas as well as the struggle to take California from the Mexicans and the Indians. Katz lets us know that although Blacks were prominent in the settling of the West, they were not welcome additions. Many territories that later became states, passed "black laws" to restrict the entry of Blacks into the territories and to regulate their behavior once they were there. Two such laws were keeping them from voting and preventing them from attending the local schools.
On the plus side, Katz gives the glittering history of the Black cowboys who herded the cattle, tamed the ponies and found gold. He even covers the lawbreakers who rustled cattle and gave Billy the Kid a run for his money in terms of bad behavior. Also there were those Blacks who were not willing to quietly accept the discrimination that they had left the states to avoid. Many of these individuals left a legacy of protest. Two women were told in a bar in Seattle, "We don't serve niggers here." They tore that place up. Then there was the sheriff who falsely arrested a Black Buffalo Soldier in Texas. Not only did his fellow soldiers protest, they ripped open the jail and took their comrade with them.
The heartbreaking side was those Blacks who worked hard and long to buy their freedom. Once they had the money and gave it their owner, their owner would accept the money and then continue to keep them in bondage. Also, when Blacks discovered gold, irate gangs of Whites who wished to steal from them frequently ran them off the claim.
This was an excellent book and in my opinion should be required reading for every school child in America. Katz does not sugar coat history as we've come so used to seeing in regular history books. He tells the good along with the bad. He makes the West come alive with his tales of individual courage as well as covering the ugly racism that has colored this country's history.
Reviewed by Alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ(tm) Reviewers
Book Description
An elegantly designed, beautifully composed volume of personal letters from famous American men and women that celebrates the American Experience and illuminates the rich history of some of America’s most storied families.
Posterity is at once an epistolary chronicle of America and a fascinating glimpse into the hearts and minds of some of history’s most admired figures. Spanning more than three centuries, these letters contain enduring lessons in life and love, character and compassion that will surprise and enlighten.
Included here are letters from Thomas Jefferson to his daughter, warning her of the evils of debt; General Patton on D-Day to his son, a cadet at West Point, about what it means to be a good soldier; W.E.B. DuBois to his daughter about character beneath the color of skin; Oscar Hammerstein about why, after all his success, he doesn’t stop working; Woody Guthrie from a New Jersey asylum to nine-year-old Arlo about universal human frailty; sixty-five-year-old Laura Ingalls Wilder’s train of thought about her pioneer childhood; Eleanor Roosevelt chastising her grown son for his Christmas plans; and Groucho Marx as a dog to his twenty-five-year-old son.
With letters that span more than three centuries of American history, Posterity is a fascinating glimpse into the thoughts, wisdom, and family lives of those whose public accomplishments have touched us all. Here are renowned Americans in their own words and in their own times, seen as they were seen by their children. Here are our great Americans as mothers and fathers.
Customer Reviews:
Great Gift for Parents, New and Old.......2007-03-22
I've stopped giving redundant, briefly used, baby items to new parents. Instead, I buy them Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children. The connection to the commonality of parenthood, that feels so unique and precious to many who've encountered it, resonates throughout this collection. Except for Jack London's contribution, you'll smile as you read most of the letters that editor Dorie Mccullough Lawson has included in this peerless treasury.
Poor selection of letters.......2004-09-21
Although I love books of letters, I found this anthology uninspiring and a poorly chosen group of contributors. The letters rely mostly upon the interest of the reader in the author, not the content of the letter itself. For example: Arlo Guthrie is a neat character, but in his letter to his son, when he tells him to be thankful to God -- why? Sure, It's good advice, and any half-wit can relay it, but the real intellect and insight comes in explaining why someone ought to be thankful to God when they or someone else is suffering. I think a much, much better anthology of letters can be found in Lisa Grunwald and Stephen Adler's "Letters of the Century". It collects hundreds of letters from authors famous and anonymous, and each is tremendously insightful about the emotions of the author, and often makes prescient remarks about the era.
Personal and Revealing.......2004-07-19
This wonderful book spans more than three centuries and gives the reader insights into the thoughts of many great Americans as they wrote to their children.
This treasury of short letters also provides some background for each one. The research needed to discover these personal letters is documented. I love this collection and the way all the letters are presented.
To quote from the author's father, David McCullough, "This is a book to pick up and read at almost any page, a book to keep close at hand, to return to for nourishment and guidance, yes, but also for reassurance and pure pleasure". I couldn't have said it any better! This quotation says exactly how I feel. I want to purchase several copies to give as gifts and as a parent, I even feel compelled to write to my own children!
All the letters provide wonderful insights into the minds of the parents, and I have several favorites; Eleanor Roosevelt wrote one to one of her sons who wanted to skip Christmas and it is so touching! As Dorie M. Lawson reminds us, letter writing is generally a thoughtful art - it cannot compare to e-mail writing.
These personal letters from parent to child are arranged thematically and within each section, they are in chronological order and printed in their entirety just as they were composed. It is thrilling to read them, especially the really old ones and all of them were written by aparent who made worthwhile contributions to America.
Here are a few of the parents whose letters are included: Thomas Jefferson to his daughter Patsy, Harry Truman to his daughter Margaret, General Patton to his son, Oscar Hammerstein to his son, and so many more from all walks of life. All of us who have children and even those who do not, will benefit from reading this rare collection of parents expressing their thoughts.
Thank you Dorie McCullough Lawson and please continue writing!
A Wonderful Display of Humanity.......2004-07-08
To often, we think of historical figures as cardboard characters, names in a textbook. In this wonderful book, they come alive as thinking, feeling human beings, sharing their innermost thoughts with their children. No matter the era, or the fame of the writer, the humanity is what one remembers. Perhaps the greatest tribute I can give Dorie McCullough Lawson is the fact that I have since read, or am reading, biographies of N.C. Wyeth, Theodore Roosevelt, John J. Pershing, and Harriet Beecher Stowe...all because of what I learned about them from her book, and the letters therein. "Posterity..." is a book to treasure.
Lovely. Moving, Entertaining Look Inside Families.......2004-04-30
I'm not a big fan of the genre of letters literature, but this book completely surprised and enthralled me. The obvious hook is the eclectic group of thinkers, from Thomas Edison and Jack London to Moe Howard from the Three Stooges and Woody Guthrie. Each writer reveals a profound love of family, children, sense of humor and warmth that is collectively astonishing and heartbreaking. (...)
Amazon.com
Texas A&M University professor H.W. Brands enhances his reputation as one of America's great popular historians with The Age of Gold, which tells the story of the California gold rush through rollicking narrative and intelligent analysis. "James Marshall's discovery of gold at Coloma [in 1848] turned out to be a seminal event in history, one of those rare moments that divide human existence into before and after," he writes. It launched "the most astonishing mass movement of people since the Crusades" and "helped initiate the modern era of American economic development." Brands describes how thousands of people from all over the world hazarded the journey, faced the scientific challenge of extracting precious metal from the earth, and finally struggled "to sink roots" where so many came merely "to strip the land." This book is something of a departure for Brands, who most recently has written biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt (both of them excellent). Yet he tackles this new topic with confidence, telling dozens of stories about John Fremont, Leland Stanford, and less famous forty-niners. He concludes by describing why these tales have a national and even global importance. The Age of Gold is magnificent in its sweep, and not to be missed by fans of American history. --John Miller
Book Description
“I have found it.” These words, uttered by the man who first discovered gold on the American River in 1848, triggered the most astonishing mass movement of peoples since the Crusades. California’s gold drew fortune-seekers from the ends of the earth. It accelerated America’s imperial expansion and exacerbated the tensions that exploded in the Civil War. And, as H. W. Brands makes clear in this spellbinding book, the Gold Rush inspired a new American dream—the “dream of instant wealth, won by audacity and good luck.”
Brands tells his epic story from multiple perspectives: of adventurers John and Jessie Fremont, entrepreneur Leland Stanford, and the wry observer Samuel Clemens—side by side with prospectors, soldiers, and scoundrels. He imparts a visceral sense of the distances they traveled, the suffering they endured, and the fortunes they made and lost. Impressive in its scholarship and overflowing with life,
The Age of Gold is history in the grand traditions of Stephen Ambrose and David McCullough.
Customer Reviews:
Great approach - lays out the impact of gold in California.......2007-04-10
If you are looking for a book about gold mining in the 1850s in California, this actually isn't it. The book spends very few pages talking about the actual mining of of gold. Instead, Brands takes a broader approach, looking at the historical impact of the discovery of gold in California and comes up with some very interesting insights.
The first thing Brands analyzes in Age of Gold is how the masses that flocked to California actually got there and where they came from. By using personal stories, Brands really brings the voyages and the hardships to life. He finds individuals who came to California from Chile, Australia, Europe and the Eastern U.S. and explains what was unique and common to each of their experiences. It's truly amazing to someone living in the age of commercial jets to read about the trails of getting from New York to San Francisco in 1850, no matter the choice of land or sea.
The second aspect of Brand's analysis is the culture of California in the 1850s and beyond. How the cities of the territory emptied on the discovery of gold and then filled up. Brands talks about the bar and brothel filled towns and settlements and the initial lack of women in California. He also points out how hard it was to set up a civil society with everyone in town simply for the purpose of getting rich quickly off of gold. The rapidity with which California goes through different phases is fascinating.
Brands then looks at how California's population explosion forced the statehood debate for California into the fore in Congress and ultimately forced the slavery debate into prominence again. Every state that came into the Union at this time was hotly contested as to whether it would be a free state or a slave state, with huge ramifications for the balance of free/slave power in congress.
The whole of the story is told through peoples' stories and experiences and has a very personal feel. Well worth reading.
Interesting , anecdotal.......2007-02-09
Brands uses the experiences of the common forty niner and the likes of John Fremont, Leland Stanford and William T. Sherman to show how the gold rush eventually resulted in the demise of the old south and the actualization of the American dream. A good pace and extensive use of anecdotes made this an enjoyable read.
Excellent Book...one of the best I've ever read.......2007-01-10
Truly the most fascinating historical account of the California Gold Rush. The author, through his research, has brought to life the troubles and tribulations of those who left their homes and families to come to the golden state. I highly recommend it. I am an historical researcher and writer and I have read alot of history books, and this one takes the prize.
California Here We Come!.......2006-11-21
The Age of Gold
The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream.
H. W. Brands has writen a compelling and comprehensive account of the California gold rush starting with the discovery at Sutters Mill.
As the news spread from California, people from all over the world came to join in the mining. Others like John and Jessie Fremont were merely in the right place at the right time.
At first pans were used to sift the gold from the sand; later a cradle was used. Even later the "Long Tom,"--an improvement on the cradle--made even better returns.
Many people that moved to California during the gold rush stayed there for the remainder of their lives. Large towns such as San Francisco grew at unprecedented rates because of the influx of people that came by boat.
This written account of the gold rush by Brands illustrates America's continual quest for the perfect get rich quick scheme. Many people did make their fortunes, but many others didn't survive the journey, and still others died when they arrived, or died working in the mines. The Age of Gold tells of the good, and the bad; the honest, and the scoundrel in an enjoyable fashion.
A great,great book.......2006-11-13
While this book has been out quite a while I read it after reading some of Brands other books. I personally feel this is his best book. By following the story of the famous and the obscure on their way to the California goldfields and their life thereafter he lends a truly human scope to the story. By looking at the affect of the gold rush on the immigrants from various countries as well as the native americans already there he tells the big picture. This is a must read for anyone with an interest in the settlement of California or the "taming" of the west. Excellent!!
Average customer rating:
|
Kit Carson: Indian Fighter or Indian Killer?
Manufacturer: University Press of Colorado
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| United States
| Historical
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Old West
| 19th Century
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Expansionism
| 19th Century
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
West
| State & Local
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Southwest
| Native American
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0870813935 |
Customer Reviews:
Presentism Fails Again.......2007-08-30
In the historical profession the term "Presentism" denotes writing a history book or article using the values of the present to judge the events of the past. For instance, apologists for the Confederacy--called neo-Confederates--have attempted to rewrite Civil War history. They attempt to prove--from their modern perspective--that slavery was wrong and had nothing to do with the outbreak of the Civil War because the "noble" leaders of the Confederacy could not have fought for so evil a cause. Much better to claim that they fought for states rights. Similar attitudes damn Presidents Washington and Jefferson for holding slaves despite the fact that abolition was an idea that had barely appeared in the American consciousness of their time. Similarly, other "presentists" damn the whites for taking land from the Indians at a time when taking land from aboriginal inhabitants any where in the world was then the norm. One wonders what sins our generation will be condemned for two or three centuries in the future because we did not have the wisdom to see that far ahead.
In this vein, R.C. Gordon-McCutchan, as editor of "Kit Carson: Indian Fighter or Indian Killer" has collected essays from modern scholars who have done their best to place Carson in his correct time and place. In short these authors have tried to let Carson live by the standards of the mid-19th Century rather than those of the 20th (the book was published in 1996).
Carson lived in a time and place where, since 1607, the Navajo raided first the Spanish, then Mexicans and finally the Americans. During this long period the Navajo also raided the resident Hopi, Pueblo, and Zuni, whose urban-agricultureal life produced a wealth worth stealing. There is some irony in the fact that both the archaeological and historical evidence clearly shows the Navajo were themselves invaders of the area.
The Americans were simply another group to raid as were any other non Navajos of the area. Kit Carson, as a man of the 19th Century, was in reality just carrying on an established pattern, and he did it, according to the research in this book, in a remarkably--for the time-- humane manner. The Navajo rendidtions of his cruelty are mainly, according to this book, legends that were spawned in the 1970 through the 1990s. They were not part of the Navajo opinion of the 1860s,
Timothy R. Roberts Ph.D (Univesity of Missouri 1976)
Customer Reviews:
Nathan and Olive Discuss Father Daniel Boone.......2003-06-24
Nathan Boone and his wife, Olive van Bibber Boone, had the kind of memories most people wish for. They remembered virtually all of the early history of Commonwealth of Kentucky. When Lyman Draper came to visit them for two months in 1851 he found them full of the most interesting and detailed memories of Daniel Boone. Not only had the elder Boone lived with them and shared his own memories, they had also lived through many of the incidents themselves, and knew many of the old pioneers -- old van Bibber was one of the earliest settlers in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Enjoyable, highly readable. I highly recommend this book.
Boone, From Myth to Reality.......2000-09-06
The Draper Interviews provide insight into the life of Boone, free of the myth and larger than life stereotype that has always surrounded this remarkable frontiersman. Nathan Boone's recollections of his father also gives us a glimpse of how Daniel himself viewed the world in which he lived and allows us to more clearly understand the man from which the legend sprung. Though many books written from similiar interviews are dull and rather boring, the Draper Interviews are arranged so that they make for rather stimulating reading and keep the reader eagerly in longing for the next chapter. Truly a "must read" for anyone interested in Daniel Boone or early Kentucky history.
Books:
- Blue Frontier: Dispatches from America's Ocean Wilderness
- Building the Greenland Kayak : A Manual for Its Contruction and Use
- Carolina Cradle: Settlement of the Northwest Carolina Frontier, 1747-1762
- Case Studies Of Process Plant Disasters
- Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith
- Damn the alligators - full speed ahead
- Desert Hawk, revised edition (The Falcon & the Hawk)
- Emmett Till: The Sacrificial Lamb in the Modern Civil Rights Movement
- Exploring Mesoamerica (Places in Time)
- Facing the Lion: Growing Up Maasai on the African Savanna (National Geographic)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Red Mafiya: How the Russian Mob Has Invaded America
- Julius Caesar
- Global Issues 2005: Selections from the CQ Researcher
- History: Fiction or Science
- History: Fiction or Science
- Managing Human Resources
- Key Indicators of Developing Asian and Pacific Countries: Volume XXVIII: 1997
- Strategy and Performance: Getting the Measure of Your Business
- Globalisation and Women in the Japanese Workforce
- Loving Che: A Novel
Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War
Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign 1941-1945
Thunderstruck
Thirteen Moons: A Novel
