I probably should rate this higher, but I just couldn't quite get interested. Which is odd, because I really do enjoy Native American history--I have ever since I was a little girl--but somehow I never clicked with this book. It's well-written, though, and impressively researched. ( )

A detailed recounting of crazy horse's life and the events leading up to his death. Did a much more comprehensive job explaining the battle of Little Bighorn to a layman than Philbrick. My only complaint is that sometimes the timeline jumped around and it could be hard to keep track of what was going on when, but this only happened occasionally. ( )

A detailed recounting of crazy horse's life and the events leading up to his death. Did a much more comprehensive job explaining the battle of Little Bighorn to a layman than Philbrick. My only complaint is that sometimes the timeline jumped around and it could be hard to keep track of what was going on when, but this only happened occasionally. ( )

I probably should rate this higher, but I just couldn't quite get interested. Which is odd, because I really do enjoy Native American history--I have ever since I was a little girl--but somehow I never clicked with this book. It's well-written, though, and impressively researched. ( )

Honestly, I don't know whether I'm getting dumber with each passing year, or if this book was extremely dense, but it took me forever to get through it. It was really good, and it was worth the effort, but boy, I had to be on top of the thing all the time to keep all the information straight. And I even went into it with a reasonable grasp of the issues, events and players, which I thought would help but apparently not.

The author goes back to A LOT of source material to flesh out the events of the Sioux Wars and the factors that ultimately resulted in the killing of Crazy Horse in 1877. Most of it was fascinating, he really assembled a lot of different view points and overall, did a great job of connecting the dots without making any wild leaps or assumptions. It all came together as a really informing study of this era of US history. Of course, in addition to being informing, it was also maddening because, just, urgh, the unfairness of it all was tangible. I mean, at literally every turn. EVERY TURN.

My biggest issue with the book was a choice to break with a roughly chronological structure and give the detailed account of Little Big Horn after Crazy Horse's (and others) eventual acquiescence and agreement to end the war. At this point I thought I was losing my mind, because I knew it happened and was wildly flipping back through the book because I thought I missed it while in some fugue state (it could happen). In retrospect, I see the point - it IS the dramatic part, and I can see the rationale of putting it in the order that the US forces learned of the details of the battle so I guess it works as the big reveal. But still, I needed some sort of clearer framework to let me know this was what was happening.

There were a few other things I would love to ask the author about - on the top of that list, is the fact he used Sioux a lot more than is usual these days (given that it's not the name these people used for themselves). He does mention it, but then continues to casually throw it around a lot, in addition to (understandably) keeping Sioux as it was used in contemporaneous accounts.

I thought this was a terrific book, but it is a commitment. I would recommend to folks who are already fairly familiar with this topic and looking for a deeper perspective. ( )