A 5-Minute Book Review: Empire of the Summer Moon
Comancheria: Truly Dangerous Territory
This weekend I picked up a fascinating new read from the Hoquiam public library: "Empire of the Summer Moon" by S.C. Gwynne.
Gwynne tells us the story of the Comanche Nation that dominated the southern Great Plains of the U.S. in the 18th and 19th centuries. At the height of their empire, the Comanches controlled territory covering 240,000 square miles, basically all of the southern Great Plains which included parts of 5 states: Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
Comancheria, as this region is called, was absolutely dangerous territory in those days. Gwynne details the danger presented by the Comanches to anyone, white settler or other Native American, crossing this territory. He has a somewhat conservative bias to his history, which comes out here, in that he describes in great detail the brutality of the Comanches and gives little attention to any Spanish, Mexican, or U.S. retaliation and violence.
This book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, which is disappointing. It is at times very poorly written; in certain passages the author cannot seem to decide what his paragraphs are about, and in others his lack of proper pronoun antecedents makes it impossible to identify what tribe or group he is referring to.
In spite of the conservative slant, and the poor writing, the book is a compelling read. Gwynne gives us an in-depth history of the Comanches in a quick-read, popular history format (as opposed to an academic or scholarly history). I'm still engaged enough to pick it up whenever I have time and continue reading, days after I first started, so I guess I would recommend it.
Just don't expect a romantic, victim-oriented view of Native Americans like you might find in "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" or other, more liberal histories. And be prepared to sort through some chunks of bad prose.