The author has tried to state the story from liberal prospective. The author S.C.Gwynne encircles the story with the social economical and political changes faced by the Comanches and the Plains Indians during the hype done by the national government. Overall, not sure I'd recommend it per se, though.uh.far more problematic books have been written and the basic facts are generally there I'd like a treatment of the same period and subjects by an actual historian (and/or some input from the Comanche themselves, which I didn't see much of in the book, though there may have been some I missed most sources seem to be historical written letters, books journals, et cetera).1 A HISTORY BOOK REPORT The story Empire of the Summer Moon is all about the up and downs of Comanche empire, the most powerful nation of North America (Gwynne). It certainly doesn't give settlers or colonial forces a pass, but the terminology still feels unnecessary. No society evades change, but the author seems to want to present the Comanche peoples as "out of the past" in a way that feels prejudiced and oversimplified, whether that was the intent or not.Īdmittedly, the author is a journalist rather than a historian and therefore I didn't necessarily expect a deep dive into the nuance of what "technology" means (is absurd navigational skill/knowledge a technology? Probably!) and the problems of dividing cultures into "primitive" vs "modern" as classifiers et cetera, but.I expected better than "stone age" as a descriptor of any culture or society. Someone, somewhere, probably felt that was an adequate term to describe any people who generally did not work metal, but quite frankly, few credible historians would look at any human group or civilization from the past thousand years and characterize them exactly that way and in any case, mining steel is not exactly a requirement for developing specialized tools or technologies. With that said, the author feels a little too invested in representing the Comanche as "primitive" - the term "stone-age" is used repeatedly.
It's certainly an engaging read, and one that brings to light a particular period, people, and series of conflicts that isn't generally well covered in most (US) history classes. The actual historical events seem to be pretty well-researched, and the narrative doesn't shy away from depicting the brutality, politics, racism, complexity, corruption, imperialism, and hypocrisy of the time and conflicts concerned. Just finished reading Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, The Most Powerful Tribe in American History.
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