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Title: Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors
ISBN: 0452008026
Author:
Stephen E. Ambrose
Publicate Date: 1986-03-01
Publish: 1986-03-01
List Price: $8.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest Used Price: $1.94
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Crazy Horse and Custer
Well written easy read. If you like history it is very well done. I loved the comparison of how each of these people grew up and how thier lives finally came together.
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2: Very enjoyable for the non-scholar
There are many books out there that individually cover Crazy Horse and Custer, and there may be a few others that combine these two historical figures into one volume. Ambrose's book, however, is one that covers so well each of these men from history and how their inexorable fates brought them together that the casual reader of history could very easily get by with just this tome.
Ambrose effectively breaks through popular myths about each character, particularly Custer, who often is erroneously portrayed as a maniacal and bumbling military commander in cinematic productions. Ambrose shows that Custer certainly had a clownish character about him, and that his judgment at times was flawed. But there is no evidence that his was mentally unstable or sociopathic. And the notion that the Plains Indians were innocent victims of American expansionist policy is set straight as well. Certainly it is true the U.S. government was duplicitous when it negotiated with the Indians, but the tribes had their own issues as well. Ambrose's description, for example, of the bloody massacre at the Washita River reveals that while the U.S. promised the Indians they could live there in peace, groups of them used the reservation as a base to conduct raids against white settlers that included not only thievery, but murder as well.
Ambrose's narrative smoothly moves along, although I felt the book got off to a slow start. The maps in the paperback edition are difficult to read. But overall, I think this book provides all that is needed for the general American history enthusiast about this period.
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3: Perhaps the Best Ambrose Offers before Lewis & Clark
Very well written account of Crazy Horse and the "crazy" attitudes of the US Government (big surprise---some things never change). Ambrose gives a detailed account of how each man came to be iconic---warts and all. Very well written---a page turner. I must admit, while I admire Ambrose and his significant contributions to the D-Day Museum, the accusations of plagiarism have kept me from reviewing his books---once these accusations appeared, I removed his books from my list---satisfied that the ones already read were enough.
All that to say, when my son, who graduated from college last year asked me what historical books I valued---this one made the list.
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4: Thorughly Researched and Filled With Obscure But Interesting Facts
I recently re-read this book, having previously read it about 6 years ago. I was led to re-visit this historical piece after reading a biography of Crazy Horse by Joseph Marshall, himself a Lakota Sioux: "Crazy Horse, The Journey of Crazy Horse, a Lakota History". Ambrose's book is very thoroughly researched and written. He puts forth historical fact and well considered hypotheses. He shatters the larger than life, heroic personality we've been fed about Custer and reveals him to be a self-absorbed, irresponsible, undisciplined, despot but an military genius except in his understanding and knowledge about Native American Indians. Perhaps only in the Post Civil War years and the great movement to conquer the Western Plains and destroy the Native American Indian would such a personality have existed.
I think the book is weighted more heavily on Custer than on Crazy Horse, but that may well be because of the scarcity of first hand or written accounts of Carzy Horse's life. For his entire life, Crazy Horse refused to interact with whites. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to delve deeply into the history of how the west was "won" and the military actions that made it possible.
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5: Good, Easy Read
Very good book that is true to the Ambrose style of writing - very easy and enjoyable to read. Ambrose has the luxury of having 130+ years of research and writing to reference yet the story, as told, is not mired in minute, inconsequential fact. Ambrose provides his opinion (in the final chapters he includes a short analysis/AAR of the battle at the Little Big Horn) in many instances yet it's not distracting nor does it detract from the telling of history - as a historian, that is what Ambrose was paid to do. His description doesn't glorify either Crazy Horse or Custer without balancing his portrayal with measured criticism.
As an ancillary benefit, this book describes the events surrounding Custer's activities in Kansas prior to his march to Montana. As a Kansas native, I found that to be extremely interesting.
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