General Books

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

Charles C. Mann

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 202 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Well Researched, Fascinating, and a Real Eye-Opener 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Back in the 1980s I picked up a book off my father's shelf that caught my eye and read it through: "Indian New England Before the Mayflower" by Howard Russell. This book was massively researched the way David McCullough would research a book: every account left by early explorers and observers was read; every reference in regional or local histories or archaeological writings was examined; every New England museum or known archaeological site was visited and informed people interviewed. I was impressed by the scholarship and came away convinced that the Native Americans were far more advanced than we have been led to believe in the typical American History book.

Thus I was not surprised by the content of "1491," which takes the same thesis and expands upon it to cover the entire New World. Charles Mann has researched his book nearly as extensively as Russell - in fact it comes as no surprise that Russell's book is cited as a source for "1491." As an aside I am puzzled by some of the one star reviews that imply "1491" has not been adequately researched - there is a 50 page note section at the back, followed by a 58 page bibliography citing, and I am not making this up, well over 1000 scholarly sources. Such comments make me question whether the writers of such reviews even have copies of the book in their possession, or are they simply launching negative reviews for some ulterior motive.

And this would make sense, because the material IS controversial. The idea that the white man is responsible for the deaths of millions of people does not sit well politically with some folks, who perhaps believe it is somehow an indictment of them, or the United States, or maybe democracy. Who knows? Whatever the reason, there is a school of thought devoted toward minimizing estimates of the Native American population prior to the arrival of Columbus, and minimizing their level of cultural advancement. Perhaps it is more palatable to think that there were only a few pesky savages around and we brought them order and civilization, versus contemplating the possibility that we may have erased an entire hemisphere's worth of civilization. To put this in perspective, imagine a scenario where the New World inhabitants had progressed faster than the Old World, and that huge invasion fleets from Central America began appearing off the European coast and the Mediterranean at the time of the Roman Empire. Imagine if these "Indians" arrived with a suite of diseases lethal to the native Europeans, and possessing technology several centuries ahead of the Romans. Imagine Europe enduring the Black Death five times over, and then waves of "Indians" coming to inhabit the now collapsed and abandoned Roman Empire and slightly less civilized areas surrounding it in Germany or Eastern Europe. Mann presents a good case that this kind of scenario is far more likely to have occurred in the New World when the Europeans arrived than the one we have all been told in American History books.

Regarding the population of pre-Columbian America, for every researcher who claims a low, less dense population, Mann shows that there are other researchers who estimate the population to be ten times higher. We will probably never know. In my opinion, and to his credit, Mann provides a balanced view of this debate, citing both sides, and then weighs in with his assessment (which is more in line with the "high" side). Again, I tend to think he presents a pretty convincing argument.

It is also clear that the idea that Native Americans consisted of small bands of stone age savages frolicking in the woods cannot possibly be true. We all know this intuitively just from the "Pilgrim" story. We all know how the Indians taught the Pilgrims how to farm - how to grow corn and squash and beans and how to fertilize and tend these crops - we've all heard the story of "Squanto." So if the Indians were a bunch of Stone Age savages living in tepees in the woods - how is that they knew more about farming than the Pilgrims? If they were that knowledgeable about farming, doesn't that imply that they had settled into agricultural communities? What do we make of the reports from early European explorers of large villages and even small cities surrounded by square miles of farms? The Pilgrims basically occupied the abandoned Indian town that was situated at Plymouth (it was abandoned because the inhabitants had been decimated by disease), and the early accounts describe it as a full-scale village with streets and large wooden buildings. Kind of like Iowa, only without satellite TV or football teams.

And these are descriptions of the Indians living far from the major population centers and urbanized areas in central America.

All in all, Mann presents a compelling argument that America was a far different place in 1491 than most of us realize. A fascinating account, and definitely a must-read for anyone interested in history.

Editorial Review:

In this groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology, Charles C. Mann radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492.

Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them. From the astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, which had running water, immaculately clean streets, and was larger than any contemporary European city, to the Mexican corn that was so carefully created in a specialized breeding process that it has been called man’s first feat of genetic engineering, Indians were not living lightly on the land but were landscaping and manipulating their world in ways that we are only now beginning to understand. Challenging and surprising, this a transformative new look at a rich and fascinating world we only thought we knew.

Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West

Hampton Sides

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Total reviews: 136 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

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.

A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn - the Last Great Battle of the American West

James Donovan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 56 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In June of 1876, on a desolate hill above a winding river called "the Little Bighorn," George Armstrong Custer and all 210 men under his direct command were annihilated by almost 2,000 Sioux and Cheyenne. The news of this devastating loss caused a public uproar, and those in positions of power promptly began to point fingers in order to avoid responsibility. Custer, who was conveniently dead, took the brunt of the blame.

The truth, however, was far more complex. A TERRIBLE GLORY is the first book to relate the entire story of this endlessly fascinating battle, and the first to call upon all the significant research and findings of the past twenty-five years--which have changed significantly how this controversial event is perceived. Furthermore, it is the first book to bring to light the details of the U.S. Army cover-up--and unravel one of the greatest mysteries in U.S. military history.

Scrupulously researched, A TERRIBLE GLORY will stand as ta landmark work. Brimming with authentic detail and an unforgettable cast of characters--from Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse to Ulysses Grant and Custer himself--this is history with the sweep of a great novel.

Sitting Bull

Bill Yenne

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Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Sitting Bull's name is still the best-known of any American Indian leader, but his life and legacy remain shrouded with misinformation and half-truths. His life spanned the entire clash of cultures and ultimate destruction of the Plains Indian way of life. He was a powerful leader and a respected shaman, but neither title fully captures the enigma of Sitting Bull.Drawing on research into rare contemporary records, and Sitting Bull's own 'hieroglyphic autobiography', this absorbing volume traces his life from a headstrong youth (named Jumping Badger) and first contact with White settlers, through his election as spiritual and military leader of the Lakota Sioux, his role in the major victory at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, his subsequent flight to Canada and return as a performer in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, to his arrest and untimely death at the hands of the Indian Affairs police on the eve of the Battle of Wounded Knee.The first new biography of Sitting Bull (1831-1890), in over fifteen years, Yenne's work will set a benchmark for all future histories.

The Frontiersmen: A Narrative

Allan W. Eckert

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Total reviews: 53 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The frontiersmen were a remarkable breed of men. They were often rough and illiterate, sometimes brutal and vicious, often seeking an escape in the wilderness of mid-America from crimes committed back east. In the beautiful but deadly country which would one day come to be known as West Virginia, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, more often than not they left their bones to bleach beside forest paths or on the banks of the Ohio River, victims of Indians who claimed the vast virgin territory and strove to turn back the growing tide of whites. These frontiersmen are the subjects of Allan Eckert's dramatic history.

Against the background of such names as George Rogers Clark, Daniel Boone, Arthur St. Clair, Anthony Wayne, Simon Girty and William Henry Harrison, Eckert has recreated the life of one of America's most outstanding heroes, Simon Kenton. Kenton's role in opening the Northwest Territory to settlement more than rivaled that of his friend Daniel Boone. By his eighteenth birthday, Kenton had already won frontier renown as woodsman, fighter and scout. His incredible physical strength and endurance, his great dignity and innate kindness made him the ideal prototype of the frontier hero.

Yet there is another story to The Frontiersmen. It is equally the story of one of history's greatest leaders, whose misfortune was to be born to a doomed cause and a dying race. Tecumseh, the brilliant Shawnee chief, welded together by the sheer force of his intellect and charisma an incredible Indian confederacy that came desperately close to breaking the thrust of the white man's westward expansion. Like Kenton, Tecumseh was the paragon of his people's virtues, and the story of his life, in Allan Eckert's hands, reveals most profoundly the grandeur and the tragedy of the American Indian.

No less importantly, The Frontiersmen is the story of wilderness America itself, its penetration and settlement, and it is Eckert's particular grace to be able to evoke life and meaning from the raw facts of this story. In The Frontiersmen not only do we care about our long-forgotten fathers, we live again with them.

Researched for seven years, The Frontiersmen is the first in Mr. Eckert's "The Winning of America" series.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

Dee Brown

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 168 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Now a special 30th-anniversary edition in both hardcover and paperback, the classic bestselling history The New York Times called "Original, remarkable, and finally heartbreaking...Impossible to put down"

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is Dee Brown's eloquent, fully documented account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian during the second half of the nineteenth century. A national bestseller in hardcover for more than a year after its initial publication, it has sold almost four million copies and has been translated into seventeen languages. For this elegant thirtieth-anniversary edition -- published in both hardcover and paperback -- Brown has contributed an incisive new preface.

Using council records, autobiographies, and firsthand descriptions, Brown allows the great chiefs and warriors of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes to tell us in their own words of the battles, massacres, and broken treaties that finally left them demoralized and defeated. A unique and disturbing narrative told with force and clarity, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee changed forever our vision of how the West was really won.

Carpe Diem: Put a Little Latin in Your Life

Harry Mount

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Deemed crappy 2 out of 5 stars.
4 of 9 people found this review helpful.

Back in the day, when I was a tender young sprout, I (an altar boy) had begun training to respond to the priest in Latin during Mass. Alas, the Church just then decided that Mass would be said in the vernacular (the Latin-derived French of my immigrant neighborhood) and by the time my training had ended, so had the Latin Mass. This experience set up a lifelong longing for the glories of Latin. When I heard of "Carpe Diem," I believed that at long last, I would be able to pick up this lost language and set my soul at ease.

Alas, "Carpe Diem" (seize the day) should have been titled "Caveat Emptor" (buyer beware). The book purports to make it easy for would-be student of Latin to pick up enough of the dead tongue to be able to read the odd tombstone or epitaph. Instead, the book is a cleverly-packaged snarky memento of a childhood spent learning Latin in England's school system. Following every few pages of ironic memories is a list of declensions of Latin nouns, which pop in like so many errant birds through the window of the narrative, leaving behind only a memory of their pleasant yet unintelligible twittering. To think that one could learn Latin from this approach is akin to thinking that slipping a series times tables into a kid's comic book would teach him math.

When memories run out, the author inserts long discussion of classical architecture, glossaries of common (and commonplace) Latin expressions, and even a short, "clever" summary of the history of Roman emperors. Incredibly, the centurion scene from Monty Python's "Life of Brian" is rendered in full, as are long snippets of Latin poetry, which remain unintelligible to all but the author and his circle of friends.

To say that "Carpe Diem " is a disappointment is understating the case significantly. The book is a fraud, a distraction, a broken promise, an unforgivable tease and a lost opportunity. There remain those (like myself) for whom a rudimentary knowledge of Latin is a life's desire. There is a need (in this, as in all subjects) for the guidance of an old master to provide a trail map through the thicket of Latin conjugations, declensions, syntax and vocabulary. This book is not that guide.

Wish that it were.

Editorial Review:

In this lighthearted guided tour of Latin, journalist and former Latin tutor Harry Mount breathes life back into the greatest language of all, drawing on everything from a Monty Python grammar lesson to Angelina Jolie's tattoos.

The Native American Experience

Jay Wertz

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Editorial Review:

The Native American Experience is a slip-cased, hardcover book with more than 200 full-color and black-and-white illustrations and 30 rare and newly researched removable facsimile documents of historical importance. 

Great Speeches by Native Americans (Dover Thrift Editions)

Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, Chief Tecumseh, Chief Seattle, Chief Geronimo, Crazy Horse

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A glimpse into what we lost when Native American culture was decimated. An absolutely gripping book. 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 14 people found this review helpful.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. Aside from being full of speeches and insights that belong in the Classics section of any decent library, the strong and concise way in which these speakers convey the greatness of Native American thought and culture is unlike anything you will ever get from your favorite writer of history books, or contemporary decendant of these great people.

I will even go so far as to say that if you are moved by the great words of Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King Jr. it would be a horrible oversight not to have read this volume.

Additionally, the book includes several short bits of historical background which are remarkable in themselves.

Great words, great thought, unlike Western or Eastern thought or any philosophy you have ever read. You can only wish these cultures had survived the holocost that was inflicted on them better so that we could have benefited to a greater degree than was done by taking their gold, land, and lives.

Credit must be also given to the Dover Thrift Edition series for not only making well known classics affordable and accessible to the average reader, but publishing such books as this which are lesser known yet of great importance to the reading and thinking public.

BOTTOM LINE: Please read this book. It's that important.

Editorial Review:

Remarkable for their eloquence and depth of feeling, these 82 speeches encompass 5 centuries of Indian encounters with nonindigenous peoples. Speakers include Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, Tecumseh, Seattle, Geronimo, Crazy Horse, and many lesser-known leaders, whose compelling words are graced by forceful metaphors and vivid imagery.

The Wisdom of the Native Americans

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Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Required Reading 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I rarely review books but this one is an exception. This book should be required reading for all students. The speeches given by the Native American chiefs are as moving and eloquent as any I've read. They rival Lincoln, Kennedy, and King Jr in thought and phrasing. These are the words of "savages" as we called them. Reading this book I can only wonder who were the savages when you look at our history with the native peoples of this country. This is a book I'll read again and again.

Wonderful book 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This was one of the first books I purchased on Native Anerican, history, Philosophy, etc. I absolutely fell in love with it. A fast read and gives the totally green American what Native American philsophy and spirituality is all about in one small book. Though only delving into it briefly, as a non-native it gave me a better understanding of our first people. So much so I have since purchased many more books on the Native Americans, and their History and Lifestyle. The speeches in this book by Chiefs Joseph and Seattle are awesome and make you think. They definitely know where it is at, and are true survivors, especially the Navajo.

Editorial Review:

This collections of writings by revered Native Americans offers timeless, meaningful lessons and thought-provoking teachings on living and learning.