Empire of the Summer Moon - S.C Gwynn

⭐ 7.5/10

(Originally written by Joseph)

This book is subtitled: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History. It was a Pulitzer finalist in 2010, and has killer reviews. I really love learning about Indigenous history, and I really enjoy southwestern American history (basically real life Westerns) so I was all in.

So I was pretty surprised that within the first chapter, I was finding this book to be... kinda racist. I would say that I loved a lot about this book and learned a ton, but it is hard to deny that the author uses a lot of insensitive language. I think he goes to great lengths to be fair, and tell both sides, and explains the realities of 19th century Comancheria without sugar coating it. The author also clearly has a lot of respect for Comanches, and isn't shy about admonishing the white settlers for their atrocities... But as a whole I just think this story could have used a bit more sensitivity.

Anyways, aside from that pretty significant issue, I still did think this book has a ton to love. It goes over a good portion of Comanche history, alternating between general history and then the more personal story of the Parker family. I think that's a cool way to do it, because the Parkers were an interesting throughline, being kidnapped by Comanche raiders, then adopted into the tribe, and eventually having a half-Comanche child who ended up being the last chief of their people. So there's lots of great overarching stuff, but also day-to-day accounts that give us ideas about their customs and traditions.

I found this group of people to be super interesting. Very similar to the Mongols, they mastered a very specific form of fighting that, had it not been for disease, could have expanded their empire much further, and in this case likely have fought off American expansion for decades longer. I definitely got romantic visions of their ways of life, following buffalo herds and living by the light of the moon. It's pretty cool stuff.

However, it's also fair to question whether these were the good guys, and I think this book does that. They were the terror of the Great Plains, especially other Plains tribes, known for their brutality and raiding, with torture and rape being commonplace. This book can be a pretty tough read at times, and definitely helps balance modern perspectives, cementing the fact that humans everywhere are just always evil.

So yeah, definitely an interesting book and one that made me think in new ways. I don't know if it's the history book I'd recommend on this topic, and obviously you'd like to have one with Comanche voices, though obviously first-hand accounts aren't super available. Still, I learned a lot and still really love this era of history, brutal as it is.