VENGEANCE: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull

VENGEANCE: The Last Stands of Custer, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull
TOM CLAVIN
St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$16.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A dramatic new look at Custer's last stand in time for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Big Horn, by the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Heart of Everything That Is.

On June 25–26, 1876, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was fought between combined forces of the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. Along the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory, the battle resulted in the devastating defeat of U.S. forces and was the most significant action of the Great Sioux War of 1876.

Now, for the 150th anniversary of this famous engagement, #1 New York Times bestseller and coauthor of the biography of Sioux warrior Red Cloud, The Heart of Everything That Is, Tom Clavin takes a fresh look at Custer's Last Stand.

This dramatic look at the Little Bighorn battle has to not only include the Native American point of view―with two dynamic Native figures, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, on prominent display―but also the impact it had on the Plains Indians. It turned out to be their last stand too because a vengeful nation quashed any remaining resistance, with a conclusive massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, almost simultaneous with the murder of Sitting Bull.

In addition, Custer’s character by June 1876 is at the heart of this world-famous disaster. For all his celebrated bravery, especially at Gettysburg 13 years earlier, Custer became a devout media hound, desperate to gain fame. Even, some say, his own demise was a misguided attempt at grabbing national headlines: He envisioned a massacre – just not his own. As both the camera and the tabloid came of age, George Armstrong Custer became America’s first bona fide celebrity.

Vengeance is a thrilling read, filled with action, legendary characters, and poignance for the impact this had on Native Americans and the shape of the American West.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: I wondered what the hell there could be left to say about this military engagement that could illuminate the events in a light, through a lens and filter, that could deepen the focus and increase the contrast. "Hold my beer" said Author Clavin.

I know there are full biographies of all the men at the center of the story being told, excellent ones that delve into psychology, racism, nationalistic myth-making and resistance to it. The short chapters and broad focus of this historical analysis of causes and effects can't offer that depth or completeness. It can, and does, offer more accessible takes on the dramatis personae and thus that much more context for the pyrrhic victory won at the Little Bighorn River.

It's not a story where breaking news is likely to occur...the souces cited in the notes tell you we're not hot on the trail of some newly discovered textual evidence breaking open some of the enduring mysteries of Custer's uncharacteristically stupid actions. It's not that book; it's very much a useful primer, broadening its intended white, history-buff audience's awareness of how the battle looked from its different combatants' eyes. I enjoyed the quick-hit chapters because I'm only very slightly interested in the battle bits, more in the people bits. The carnage is not stinted herein. But we're not *immersed* in it because no piece of the story as retold here lasts long enough to make the reader feel he's going to need to scrub blood off his footgear after the read.

It's a popularization of more scholarly, and a contextualization of more white-triumphalist, works that have come before it. As I do not care to subject myself to the dizzying heights/depths od historiographic work done on Manifest Destiny and its concomitant Native American genocide, it's a work that suited my reading needs.

THE UNFINISHED BUSINESS OF 1776: Why the American Revolution Never Ended

THE UNFINISHED BUSINESS OF 1776: Why the American Revolution Never Ended
THOMAS RICHARDS
The New Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$29.99 all editions, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A clarion call for taking back the American Revolution from the far right, published for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence

Who gets to claim the legacy of the American Revolution and the mantle of patriotism that goes along with it? In a sharp, irreverent, deeply informed account of the nation’s founding moment and its enduring legacies, historian Thomas Richards Jr. invites us to see the Revolution not just as a one-time fight for political freedom from Britain but as an ongoing struggle for equality, justice, and social and political independence for all Americans.

A riveting work of narrative history, The Unfinished Business of 1776 shows that the Revolutionary struggle did not end in 1788 when the Constitution was ratified. Across nine dramatic chapters, Richards introduces readers to the vividly drawn characters who kept the Revolution alive for the next century and beyond, including the women’s rights advocate Judith Sargent Murray, the enslaved rebel Gabriel, the economic reformer Solomon Sharp, and the religious visionary Joseph Smith—each pushing for freedoms that extended well beyond the traditional narrative of the Revolution, and each revealing how the unfinished work of 1776 fueled demands for economic, social, and legal equality that lasted well beyond the Revolution itself.

A myth-busting book about the history we think we know, The Unfinished Business of 1776 is the perfect antidote to jingoistic celebrations of America—offering an inclusive vision of our common past.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: The author's biography on his publisher's website is below:

Thomas Richards Jr. teaches history at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy in Philadelphia and holds a PhD in History from Temple University. The author of Breakaway Americas: The Unmanifest Future of the Jacksonian United States and The Unfinished Business of 1776 (The New Press), he lives in Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania, where George Washington once camped.

He's got credentials, he's teaching at a level I wish more PhD-holders would teach at, and he's singin' my song. He wants the left to take back the ideals of the 1776 Revolution from the the reactionaries and right-wingers.

The case studies for his assertion that the Revolution contained the seeds of progressive action are decent; I myownself flinch away from his inclusion of that lunatic religiosifier Smith. He belongs, however; my distaste for him and the people who have used his example to create a polity I abominate, reject, and hold in deep scorn notwithstanding, what he set in motion is part of what's foreseen and protected in the US Constitution.

I had not heard of Judith Sargent Murray, for example, or her advocacy of woman suffrage, and am glad I now know she existed despite her being primarily a poet. In filling the great gaps that exist in my own knowledge like this one, the author does me a great service. I suspect many will be less offended than i was by the pro-religious threads he weaves generously into his analyses.

I would rate this book lower than I do had I not found this passage in the author's epilogue:

Trumpism is also predicated on easily disprovable, often dangerous or malicious lies, unbridled demagoguery, and an open embrace of anti-intellectualism—all of which the Founding Fathers abhorred. The Founders were undoubtedly flawed, but they did not lie egregiously, embrace fanaticism, or celebrate stupidity.

Preach, Brother Richards.