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roxymaybe's review against another edition
1.0
Shockingly racist for a book published this century. Frequently refers to native tribes as "savages" "primitives" and "backwards." The amount of positive reviews of it are, frankly, embarrassing.
A few choice excerpts:
"While the Comanches had a limited vocabulary to describe most things, a trait common to primitive peoples, their equine lexicon was large and minutely descriptive."
Although not the most offensive thing in the book by a HUGE margin, this common misconception is particularly annoying because Geoffrey Pullum's "The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax" was published in NINETEEN NINETY-ONE, and yet it is still somehow acceptable to say that "primitive" peoples have unsophisticated languages! This is just plain intellectual dishonesty.
"...it was not an empire in the traditional sense, and the Comanche knew nothing of the political structures that stitched European empires together."
Some nice Eurocentrism there, as if it matters at ALL what the Americans knew of European culture. Ask a European peasant in 1543 to tell you anything about political structures a whole ocean away and see if you get a coherent answer!
"They were descendants of the primitive hunters, who had crossed the land bridge from Asia to America in successive migration from 11,000 and 5,000 BC, and in the millenia that followed, they had scarcely advanced at all."
Again, check in with those European Dark Age peasants about hygiene practices or whether someone accused of a crime had a right to be tried by a jury of his peers, and see what kind of "advancements" THEY made in the millenia since arriving in Europe.
After a graphic detail of a white European woman's brutal mistreatment by her Comanche captors (from her own account), the author almost manages to have some perspective by saying that European readers would naturally be making moral judgements, but manages to fall back onto those very same moral judgements himself: "Not only did they [the Comanches] inflict horrific suffering, but from all evidence, they enjoyed it. This was perhaps the worst part, and certainly the most frightening part. Making people scream in pain was fun for them, just as it is fun for young boys in modern 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."
I really feel like the author is trying to dispel the "noble savage" myth (he says as much himself), but then takes the other extreme by just portraying them as barbarians who brutalise helpless white girls (a weird amount of references to the "blue eyes" of the captives). Does he not realize that, just like every other group of humans on the planet, sometimes you will encounter kindness, and others, cruelty? I really think you'd get a more nuanced account in one of those racist Disney cartoons from the 1940's. Also, not for nothing, the idea that white American boys grow out of their sadistic pleasures is itself questionable.
Maybe by the end of the book the author pulls a 180 and admits that everything in the first half is irresponsible sensationalism peppered with half-truths and whole disrespect. Maybe the Comanches really were a brutal breed of barbaric beasts without the brain capacity to be civil to white women. I don't know. I kept shouting "what?!" in public at the egregious and excessive disparaging commentary. I had to stop reading for the sake of my own blood pressure. In short, the person who recommended this book to me is no longer my friend.
For your consideration, if you are interested in the native peoples of the Americas:
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (ReVisioning American History) by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax and Other Irreverent Essays on the Study of Language by Geoffrey K. Pullum (the eponymous essay is available to read freely with a quick Google search)
*Please note I had the audiobook version, so the punctuation in the quotations may be slightly off
A few choice excerpts:
"While the Comanches had a limited vocabulary to describe most things, a trait common to primitive peoples, their equine lexicon was large and minutely descriptive."
Although not the most offensive thing in the book by a HUGE margin, this common misconception is particularly annoying because Geoffrey Pullum's "The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax" was published in NINETEEN NINETY-ONE, and yet it is still somehow acceptable to say that "primitive" peoples have unsophisticated languages! This is just plain intellectual dishonesty.
"...it was not an empire in the traditional sense, and the Comanche knew nothing of the political structures that stitched European empires together."
Some nice Eurocentrism there, as if it matters at ALL what the Americans knew of European culture. Ask a European peasant in 1543 to tell you anything about political structures a whole ocean away and see if you get a coherent answer!
"They were descendants of the primitive hunters, who had crossed the land bridge from Asia to America in successive migration from 11,000 and 5,000 BC, and in the millenia that followed, they had scarcely advanced at all."
Again, check in with those European Dark Age peasants about hygiene practices or whether someone accused of a crime had a right to be tried by a jury of his peers, and see what kind of "advancements" THEY made in the millenia since arriving in Europe.
After a graphic detail of a white European woman's brutal mistreatment by her Comanche captors (from her own account), the author almost manages to have some perspective by saying that European readers would naturally be making moral judgements, but manages to fall back onto those very same moral judgements himself: "Not only did they [the Comanches] inflict horrific suffering, but from all evidence, they enjoyed it. This was perhaps the worst part, and certainly the most frightening part. Making people scream in pain was fun for them, just as it is fun for young boys in modern 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."
I really feel like the author is trying to dispel the "noble savage" myth (he says as much himself), but then takes the other extreme by just portraying them as barbarians who brutalise helpless white girls (a weird amount of references to the "blue eyes" of the captives). Does he not realize that, just like every other group of humans on the planet, sometimes you will encounter kindness, and others, cruelty? I really think you'd get a more nuanced account in one of those racist Disney cartoons from the 1940's. Also, not for nothing, the idea that white American boys grow out of their sadistic pleasures is itself questionable.
Maybe by the end of the book the author pulls a 180 and admits that everything in the first half is irresponsible sensationalism peppered with half-truths and whole disrespect. Maybe the Comanches really were a brutal breed of barbaric beasts without the brain capacity to be civil to white women. I don't know. I kept shouting "what?!" in public at the egregious and excessive disparaging commentary. I had to stop reading for the sake of my own blood pressure. In short, the person who recommended this book to me is no longer my friend.
For your consideration, if you are interested in the native peoples of the Americas:
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (ReVisioning American History) by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax and Other Irreverent Essays on the Study of Language by Geoffrey K. Pullum (the eponymous essay is available to read freely with a quick Google search)
*Please note I had the audiobook version, so the punctuation in the quotations may be slightly off
orchid_2023's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
3.75
rocksie19's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.0
missyjohnson's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this book about the clash of the native Indian tribes and the white man's relentless movement into the west and their territory. I did get a bit frustrated with the repetition, in the first half of the book, that dealt with the horsemanship and marksmanship of the Comanche. It almost seemed as if each chapter was written as a stand alone bit of info that required a good bit of repeating. In the second half of the book, either I quite paying attention to that descriptor or it was not as prevalent. Could be that it was not as prevalent as the Indians were losing more and more territory by that time. I read a few folks reviews on this book before finishing (something that I try to avoid) and I am not certain that some of the folks even read the book. There were complaints that it was slanted to the white point of view. I completely disagree. The whites were ruthless and dismissive of their actions and were not glorifies. Another review mentioned the book had very little to do with Quanah Parker. I disagree there as well. Just because he was not a focal point until the last third of the book, the prior part of the book required the information to set the background for so much going forward. I will look at the great prairies of the US with different eyes going forward.
mr_rogers_el_camino's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
Cowboys vs. Indians and Indians vs. the World. We all think we know the story of how the west was forged into what it is today, but I'm sure this book will still shock and surprise you.
This is the rigorously investigated and chronicled true story of the plains Indians at the turn of the century. Intimate and devastating we are asked to bare witness as societies, cultures, religions, families and individuals literally fight to the death for the right to exist and thrive. This book doesn't take sides it simply tells the story of what happened and let's the reader make up their own mind. This may be hard for some readers due to preconceived ideas of manifest destiny and the inherent rightness of colonial expansionism. Others may take offense at learning the depravity of the tactics used by the Native Americans against the settlers. Either way this is an important piece of American history that is required reading for anyone interested in this time period or these larger than life characters.
This is the rigorously investigated and chronicled true story of the plains Indians at the turn of the century. Intimate and devastating we are asked to bare witness as societies, cultures, religions, families and individuals literally fight to the death for the right to exist and thrive. This book doesn't take sides it simply tells the story of what happened and let's the reader make up their own mind. This may be hard for some readers due to preconceived ideas of manifest destiny and the inherent rightness of colonial expansionism. Others may take offense at learning the depravity of the tactics used by the Native Americans against the settlers. Either way this is an important piece of American history that is required reading for anyone interested in this time period or these larger than life characters.
frostap's review against another edition
4.0
Well-written and well-researched, but it took a while for me to get into it. There's so very little I know about Plains Indians (well, not anymore!).
sarahjfloyd's review against another edition
Got about 25% in but the narrator was like listening to a male version of Siri.
space_troll's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
informative
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
5.0