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Empire of the Summer Moon



The book came out a couple years ago and is now available in paperback.  It tells the story of the Comanche "empire" and Quanah Parker's role in saving what was left of it.  I came across it when I was looking for titles on the Comanche.  The broad network of tribes seemed more like an amalgam than an empire or nation.  Reminds me of the Seminole in Florida, who like the Comanche were hard to pin down and took decades to finally subdue.  They too had no single cultural identity, but absorbed roaming tribes that had broken off from other Southeast tribes and were seeking refuge from the intrusion of settlers.

I also noted Dee Brown's book on The American West, where he looks at the different Indian nations, including the Comanche, which comprised the American Plains.  One of the things I found amusing about Frankel, was he noting that the Comanche had an egocentric view of themselves by calling themselves "the people."  Actually, most tribes consider themselves "the people," including the Navajo who call themselves Dineh.  Navajo was a term given to them by the Spanish, just as Sioux was a term given to these Plains Indians by the French.  They all derive from the earlier Athabascans, who drifted down from the high plains of Canada in the 16th century, so were relatively new to the region.  They don't have a long settled history like the Pueblo Indians.  Taos Pueblo has been continuously occupied for a millennium.

I picked up a copy of 1491 after enjoying Charles Mann's 1493.  Pre-Columbian America has always been of great fascination to me I proudly hung a National Geographic map of Indians of North America (1972) on my wall for several years.

Comments

  1. I have that book by Gwynne. Maybe I should take a look at it now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Frankel briefly mentions Fraser's Last Frontier:


    http://www.rockwellmuseum.org/iu/Fraser.jpg

    I couldn't help but notice the resemblance to some old portrayals of Don Quixote:

    https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcToOBKbJaeIRnXIHvclmN0q9oBHejZY1RBAtaICb53M92umVWaF4Q

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lots of good fiction on Native Americans and the West abounds. I just finished reading via audio book Will Henry's "From Where the Sun Now Stands":

    http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n33/n166270.jpg


    Don't know how true these accounts are but it does make for good reading.

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  4. Best fiction book is Fools Crow. Empire of the Summer Moon was okay and it sold well.The better book is Comanche Empire.I just clicked here for the first time in a month and right away was hijacked to the same ad page so I hope I don't get my home page hijackd again.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I had the same thing happen to me while traveling with my other computer. I copied the address and will send it to Google, not that it will do any good.

      We do have a widget here -- the recent comments and this day in history. Maybe we should drop them and see if that's where the redirect is embedded. Otherwise, we may have to redirect ourselves to another blog provider.

      Fools Crow has just been made into a movie by a couple local brothers (and friends of Welch). Be interesting to see how it works out.

      Delete
  5. Looks like an interesting title, bo. I've sent repeated e-mails to google about the page diverting, but have received no responses. When I looked on their forum board I saw that they conveniently blamed this on third party widgets. The only thing that has worked for me is adblock. I haven't had any problems since running it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Gintaras -- I just tried cutting the "this day in history" link and it appears that is where the redirect was embedded. I am now able to open this page without any problems. Hopefully others will too.

    ReplyDelete
  7. We'll see how it goes. It was a third-party widget so that indeed may have been in the problem.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I will email John and see how it goes for him. Per your note about external widgets, I thought of that link because of its placement on the page, but we'll see what happens for John.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I didn't think to remove it since it has been there since the beginning, but I guess it got corrupted over time.

    ReplyDelete
  10. NOPE -- sorry. It's still there .... It took awhile this time to hit it, but I got sent to

    http://search.golfglovessales.com/search.php

    ReplyDelete
  11. Should we try the recent comments?

    ReplyDelete
  12. I don't think it will do any good, and besides "recent comments" is very useful.

    ReplyDelete
  13. My guess is that these redirects come from the embedded ads, which I have been able to block with adblock.

    ReplyDelete
  14. So in that case, it is google's responsibility since they are responsible for the ads on the page. I have two redirected links now that I can send them.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Are you using adblock? I get no help from Google so I don't bother writing anymore. The embedded ads are a problem on a great number of websites. I think eventually these hackers find ways to attack individual users. So, in many ways it is a losing battle, but adblock works for me.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Yes, I changed browsers and added it to my home computer. It's just other computers I use where I have the trouble now.

    ReplyDelete

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