S.C. Gwynne is the author of His Majesty's Airship, Hymns of the Republic, and the New York Times bestsellers Rebel Yell and Empire of the Summer Moon, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He spent most of his career as a journalist, including stints with Time as bureau chief, national correspondent, and senior editor, and with Texas Monthly as executive editor. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife.
"In Empire of the Summer Moon, Sam Gwynne has given us a rich,
vividly detailed rendering of an important era in our history and
of two great men, Quanah Parker and Ranald Slidel Mackenzie, whose
struggles did much to define it."--Larry McMurtry
"Transcendent...Empire of the Summer Moon is nothing short of a
revelation...will leave dust and blood on your jeans."--New York
Times Book Review
Journalist Gwynne tracks one of the U.S.'s longest-running military conflicts in this gripping history of the war against the Comanche Indians on the high plains of Texas and Colorado. The Comanches stood for decades as the single most effective military force on the southern plains; their mastery of horseback warfare and their intimate knowledge of the trackless desert of the plains stymied the armies of Spain and Mexico, and blocked American westward expansion for 40 years. Gwynne's account orbits around Quanah Parker (ca. 1852-1911), the brilliant war chief whose resistance raged even as the Comanche, increasingly demoralized by the loss of the buffalo and the American military's policy of total annihilation, retreated into the reservation. Rigorously researched and evenhanded, the book paints both the Comanches and Americans in their glory and shame, bravery and savagery. The author's narrative prowess is marred only by his fondness for outdated anthropological terminology ("low barbarian," "premoral" culture). That aside, the book combines rich historical detail with a keen sense of adventure and of the humanity of its protagonists. (May) Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.
"In Empire of the Summer Moon, Sam Gwynne has given us a
rich, vividly detailed rendering of an important era in our history
and of two great men, Quanah Parker and Ranald Slidel Mackenzie,
whose struggles did much to define it."--Larry McMurtry
"Transcendent...Empire of the Summer Moon is nothing short
of a revelation...will leave dust and blood on your jeans."--New
York Times Book Review
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