Scan barcode
rodneywilhite's review against another edition
I don't know how to rate this book. It's a heartbreaking, tender, ultimately sympathetic portrait of the rise and fall of the Comanche, but it's also a dismissive, tone deaf rendering of traditional Comanche culture as simple and "primitive," and Gwynne writes with undisguised admiration of the tenacity of the genocidal "Indian fighters" of the Texas Rangers and US Army. The author labors under the belief that culture is a linear progression, with European-style agrarian capitalism as the pinnacle of civilization and indigenous culture as some backward, formless void.
AND YET, he is able to write this description of Cynthia Ann Parker pining for her Comanche upbringing, "...a world of ceaseless toil, hunger, constant war, and early death. But also of pure magic, of beaver ceremonies and eagle dances, of spirits that inhabited springs, trees, rocks, turtles, and crows; a place where people danced all night and sang bear medicine songs, where wolf medicine made a person invulnerable to bullets, dream visions dictated tribal policy, and ghosts were alive in the wind. On grassy plains and timbered river bottoms from Kansas to Texas, Cynthia Ann--Nautdah--had drifted in the mystical cycles of the seasons, living in that random, terrifying, bloody, and intensely alive place where nature and divinity became one."
There are many places online to read about how harmful and racist Gwynne's rhetoric is in this book, and all of them are accurate. But once Cynthia Ann and Quanah Parker come into the narrative the narrative catches flight and Gwynne shifts allegiance to the waning, tragic Comanche. I don't understand Gwynne as a historian at all, I'll admit. I was infuriated by the early chapters and enthralled by the later ones, and all in all, enjoyed reading this grim and unflinching look at (and product of) how modern America came into being.
AND YET, he is able to write this description of Cynthia Ann Parker pining for her Comanche upbringing, "...a world of ceaseless toil, hunger, constant war, and early death. But also of pure magic, of beaver ceremonies and eagle dances, of spirits that inhabited springs, trees, rocks, turtles, and crows; a place where people danced all night and sang bear medicine songs, where wolf medicine made a person invulnerable to bullets, dream visions dictated tribal policy, and ghosts were alive in the wind. On grassy plains and timbered river bottoms from Kansas to Texas, Cynthia Ann--Nautdah--had drifted in the mystical cycles of the seasons, living in that random, terrifying, bloody, and intensely alive place where nature and divinity became one."
There are many places online to read about how harmful and racist Gwynne's rhetoric is in this book, and all of them are accurate. But once Cynthia Ann and Quanah Parker come into the narrative the narrative catches flight and Gwynne shifts allegiance to the waning, tragic Comanche. I don't understand Gwynne as a historian at all, I'll admit. I was infuriated by the early chapters and enthralled by the later ones, and all in all, enjoyed reading this grim and unflinching look at (and product of) how modern America came into being.
wjcalvert's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
5.0
janna128's review against another edition
5.0
This author has such an inmate ability to keep his readers engaged. Perhaps it's helpful that the subject matter is absolutely enthralling.
I've requested every single audiobook by Gwynne offered by my library as a result!
I've requested every single audiobook by Gwynne offered by my library as a result!