Oklahoma Books

These Aztec poems and narratives reveal deep questions about the nature of humans and the universe itself.

Miguel Leon-Portilla is acknowledged as a basic source for Aztec thought and beliefs. He writes with clarity and knowledge about how the Aztec looked at the world. Read this book to get a balance to the common knowledge about Aztec sacrifices. They had a developed philosophy and much to say about how to live in the world. It is time to read about some of the more "positive" aspects of this culture and this book introduces them.An anitdote to the judging Western culture bias.

...of aztec history. this book is very complex and very intriguing at the same time. portilla offers an extensive background and the significance of the creation myth of the aztecs and their history through the use of histories that were taken from the priest who interviewed key priest/teachers in the aztec culture. portilla takes the information that is known through the written and oral history of what is left of this amazing civilization and puts it into a book for people who know enough to understand the basics and the deeper aspects of the nahuac philosophy. this book is very complex, however, is very enlightening if you take the time to understand what is being said.

This tour into the thicket of Aztec thought is indispensable, which is why I gave it four stars. But it was written forty years ago, leaving it with two glaring problems.

The author: What might seem to be hyper-political-correctness is actually poignantly outrageous ancestor worship. The Aztecs can do no wrong, so get used to it. On p. 155 Leon-Portilla takes us through the "sagacity" of book burning! "The common folk were worshipping pictures of their ancient rulers as gods." (Sound familiar?) How, exactly, was this culture-destroying move sagacious? Well, it shows that the Mexica had "a strong awareness of history"!

(But when the Spanish burn books, poetry, art and music - beauty itself - leave the planet forever.)

This quaint attitude actually helps make a difficult topic entertaining. The translation is a more aggravating problem. "Deities of the Close Vicinity"? Why didn't our translator throw in some English, like "Lords of the Nearby"? And he gives us "tiger" in place of jaguar! (Spanish for jaguar is "tigre.")

Leon-Portilla goes to great lengths to explain a phenomenon common in Náhautl, difrasismo, which apparently is rare in Spanish. But the translation completely ignores that it's the bread and butter of English - difrasismo is the coupling of words, like "bread and butter"! The crucial Aztec phrase "face and heart," for example, is apparently untranslatable into Spanish, but English has "body and soul," or the plural "hearts and minds"! How beautifully Nahuatl must translate directly into English!

This is a must-read for the student of ancient America, and not just because there's nothing else out there. But oh for a new translation!

This book is not horribly difficult to read, providing a line by line commentary on Nahuatl philosophy-poetry. However, if you're looking for an easy to read, general overview of the philosophy, I do not recommend Aztec Thought and Culture. It simply gets too detailed too fast.

Samuel Ross photographed two Learjet's at the airport before taking off for Oklahoma to see his dad and his new family. He was just trying out his new camera. He didn't see an angry man who tried to stop him from taking the shot; they ran after him and entered the plane.
Nothing could have prepared him for his hick stepbrother, or the rustic house in backwoods Oklahoma. Someone called and said he won the photo contest. He thought it was a mistake until four men appeared at his door wanting to kill him.
I think Journey Into Terror is a great book for someone that likes action. If you read this book you will wonder what happens next. This will be a great book if you live in the woods or get chased a lot of times by strangers. And don't ever take a picture of strangers.

The book Journey into Terror by Bill Wallace is about a twelve year old boy whose parents are divorced. In this book Sam, the main character is at the air port waiting for his plane to visit his dad. While he was waiting he decided to take some pictures whith the camera he got from his dad. He took a picture of two Lear jets whith some guys in the middle of the two Lear jets.Sam took a picture of the wrong guys, they were after him. I didn't really like this book. I thought the author left out to many detals. I wouldn't recommend this book to any one but thats just my opinion.

Journey into terror is a book about Sam and his family getting into trouble. They're captured by unknown people. They go through many adventures throughout the story. It starts with Sam taking a picture of a guy that's bad, now the chase begins. I think that people should read this book because it has action, excitement and other cool stuff in it. It would be a miracle if someone put the book down. I learned that you shouldn't give up. I also learned that you should never tell a bad guy a secret.

When 12-year-old Sam goes to Oklahoma to visit his dad and new stepmom and stepbrother, he takes a picture of two men at the airport and thinks nothing of it. But it turns out that the two are professional killers and the picture is incriminating evidence. The hit men come to the house and kidnap everyone, and Sam and his stepbrother, Gary, escape and go to get help. You'll have to read what happens next!

This was a good book, but there was a lot of complaining in it! More than half of it is Sam going on about his stepbrother, his feet, being way up in the mountains, the temperature ... I would've liked it better if I hadn't read Bill Wallace's other books first. I think "Quicksand Swamp" is his best.

I really enjoyed this book. Even though in the begining Alice was convinced that she would hate her pare-shaped teacher Mrs. Plotkin, as the story goes on she learns that looks are only skin deep! I'm looking forward to reading more Alice books in the future!

Many thanks for splendid item & price, and professional service. KN

How could I not give 5 stars to a crack-shot gunslinger who murdered numerous men then became a lawyer and actually wrote a book about his violent life?
I've read the other reviews so I will try not to repeat anything you've already read. It's rumored John W. Hardin didn't write the book! Considering what I already said about becoming a lawyer I can't see how he wouldn't have been able to write it himself. I'm not sure when he started or how long it took him but he was able to pinpoint some of the dates so I'd have to say he kept some kind of a diary or guessed in order to appear more authentic.
If/when you read the book maybe you'll notice his writing seems to get better as the book progresses. At the beginning some paragraphs last more than a couple pages with him changing the subject throughout. Well before the end, however, the writing improves greatly. But I believe it was all written by the same person because the style didn't really change. Maybe if he had lived longer he would have gone back and re-wrote the earlier part of the book to match the style of the later parts when he became more educated.
I remember hearing how he "was so mean he once shot a man for snoring." Hardin never mentions this but I believe it was the part about killing the guy who tried to sneak into his room to take his pants and then fleeing in his underwear and running around trying to elude Wild Bill Hickok and his men. Seems if Hardin killed the guy for the reason he specified he wouldn't have needed to run away especially since he and Wild Bill shared a respect for one another.
His point of view on all the events may have not have been 100% true but it tends to validate the type of person he was... And it's all in his own words.

The autobiography of John Wesley Hardin would be illuminating if it was not one long tedious, blow-by-blow account of the man's life. Even though there is a brawl, a gunfight, or a mad chase on nearly every page the book manages to be excruciatingly dull. The reason? Stilted, cumbersome, self-absorbed writing. It is hard to find value in this work even as primary source history because there is not really much history there.

Hardin begins his narrative by acknowledging that he is very much a product of a particular time and place, a particular culture. He does not see any reason why he should attempt to transcend that, let alone apologize for it. He accepts himself for what he is and expects everyone else to do the same. He is above all a man of violence, ready and able to resolve all conflicts with physical - if necessary, deadly - force. Raised in Reconstruction Texas, he finds plenty to fuel his resentment, including carpetbagger politicians from the north and newly emancipated slaves appointed as police officers (an unquestioning racialism was part of his heritage). Nor is it in his nature to run from a fight. When he hears that Wild Bill Hickok, then Marshall of Abilene, has threatened to kill him if he ever sets foot in the town, what does he do? Goes immediately to Abilene of course, to face him. I would have been inclined to go anywhere but.

Tough, fearless, uncompromising and cunning (at one point, he pretends to cry, in order to throw his captors off-guard) with an uncontrollable temper, he became the most formidable gunfighter of the Old West. How many men he killed no one knows for sure. Not even he knew. It was at least 20, probably 40 or more.

His life story has the strengths and weaknesses common to all autobiographies: it is the authentic voice, but it tells us a selective and heavily slanted story. It remains an invaluable primary source and should be required reading for anyone seriously interested in the history of the American West. Although not great literature, it is well written. The Western Frontier Library edition is good, with a useful introduction and postscript, but I would have liked a few footnotes, to save me having to go online for explanations of 'headright' and 'galluses', etc.

Although this book is far from objective and the author tries to justify the many murders that he commited, this is still a good book for someone interested in western history or western gunfighters. John Wesley Hardin was possibly the most notorious and most prolific killer of the era.
While this book is not the most objective it does give a good insight into the subject's thinking. It is also the only way to track Mr. Hardin through some periods of his life

Some books can have an effect on readers that makes them read slower and slower along the line. It's because they want it never to end.
This is such a book. The mingle of history, American Indian traditions, myth, mirth and deep tragedy, all woven around the bigger than life protagonist Okla Hannali, makes one aware of every word written.
I think R.A. Lafferty has the unique capacity to make history, even at its most tragic moments a rare feast to live through.

A very good and unusual historical novel. Lafferty was best known for his many Science Fiction short stories, though his unconventional work is difficult to classify. Okla Hannali tells the story of the "civilized" Indian tribes who were expelled from the South and resettled in what became Oklahoma. Lafferty uses the life of a single Choctaw man to recount several important episodes in the history of the Indian Nations of Oklahoma. Written well with folk tale and mythical aspects integrated into the story. There are elements of what might be called magical realism though use of this term suggests derivation from Garcia Marquez or other South Americans. It is likely, however, that Lafferty developed these techniques on his own. This is arguably one of Lafferty's more conventional works and well worth searching out.

Fans of R. A. Lafferty (1914-2002) can make a very strong case for him as the greatest American author who has ever lived. Yet even so, he has always been an little-known author and now seems fading towards total obscurity. Both in the speculative fiction community and in the world of 'serious' literature, few of even the most devoted fans will recognize his name. If Lafferty does drop out of people's awareness entirely, the world will lose more than merely a lot of great books. Lafferty's body of work, produced in a amazingly short thirteen years, is one of the great creative achievements of the human race.

"Okla Hannali", not even viewed as one of Lafferty's better novels, is a stunning achievement. Every element of the author's craft is used to near perfection: plot, character, setting, emotional arch, and language. And language. No review could do justice to Lafferty's brilliance with words, yet I must try.

"Okla Hannali" is written in many voices. An individual paragraph may sound entirely different from the next, with different vocabulary and different structure. Yet as with all of Lafferty, there is an enormous amount of method behind the madness. The voices Lafferty chooses are at every time the appropriate voices. They are the words, the styles, the flows that are exactly right for communicating the story. Lafferty set out to tell the history of the Choctaw people. To do so he had to overcome both the racist view of Indians as savages and the romanticized view of them as peace-loving and perfect. Crushing these barriers meant using some odd linguistic styles.

For instance, Lafferty tells us early on that the Choctaws never understood punctuation, and simply spoke in a stream of words without clear starts and ends. He captures this style:

"Pushmataha say that I leave my grin there grinning at him and walk out from behind it and take a ramble and a drink and a nap all the while he was hold his breath and swell up and turn purple and then I come back rested and slip into my grin again and so have him tricked"

Is reading this difficult? That's your call, of course, but you get used to it as the book goes along. But this is important. Lafferty wants to show you what life was like among the Choctaw Indians. What life was really really like.

Of course Lafferty would never settle for merely so small a goal. There is purpose here. The purpose is to document the abuses that were heaped on the Indians during the eighteenth century, bu the government. To show that no matter what excuses are offered up, there's no decent explanation for what was done to the Native American tribes in these years. And to that end, Lafferty fights with every imaginable weapon: understatement, overstatement, misdirection, fantasy sequences, subplots, historical notes, and more. Most often, though, he tells the truth. For instance when the Indians assess the land that the government tricked them into accepting in Oklahoma:

"They examined the land to the south for a month. They all realized now - (what the worldly of them had always known) - that the north-south distance was about a third of that represented to them, and that the unidsputed domain of the Plains Indians was much closer than they had been told. Three quarters of the land for which they had traded their southern acres did not exist."

R. A. Lafferty believed in things. He believed strongly, believed passionately, and fought to make readers see things his way. "Okla Hannali" is a majestic novel (though as I said it's not even one of his better books) It swings from outrageous comedy to terrible tragedy to poignant romance to gritty action so deftly that you don't notice till the end that the entire world, for one group of people was destroyed.

A well written and engrossing story of a society and people depicted through an account of the life and experiences of a notable and idealized prominent tribal character, Okla Hannali. The main character's experiences and views embody and illustrate the ideals and principles of a developed yet, beset people. The character parallels the people's adaptation, acquiescence, manipulation and eventual conquest by accommodation of the factors which beset them.

The Choctaw evaluate and accommodate the pressure of the immigrant American drive to acquire their native lands. The tribal people adapt by shifting their territory and preserving their society in a new area. They master the new lands and restructure their society again in the area newly adopted.

The reader feels empathy with the Choctaw. The book gives new understanding and experience of the people. Their blended culture exists today in the area described in the book. It is real.

I started reading Okla Hannali after a friend told me it was one of his favorite Lafferty books. I grew up in Oklahoma, I'm part Cherokee, I'm sympathetic to what he's trying to do, and I like most of Lafferty's work. But I didn't get far with this one. It's written as a pseudo-historical tall-tale, in what purports to be Choctaw conversational style, which comes across as, well, gibberish. I couldn't get interested in the characters or their story. Caveat lector.

For a successful novel about Indians in Oklahoma, I recommend Larry McMurtry's ZEKE AND NED, about the Cherokees after their forced resettlement into eastern Oklahoma. Not preachy and very nicely done.

Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman

I enjoy a madcap noir novel as much as anybody, and the premise of this one sounded fun.
Right out of the gate, it hit a pet peeve of mine (fact-checking isn't that hard), though. You'd think Ellis would know better than to promise not to come back to Missouri when his life is actually being threatened in Illinois. It was a small thing, but the sort of first-impression small thing that makes other small things you might never have noticed stand out. And there were other small things that bugged - slang that didn't fit the speaker, unnecessarily confusing wording here and there - nothing big, but there just the same.
I don't think I would've had trouble getting past those things, though, if Gischler had spent a little more time developing his characters and a little less time trying to storyboard a Tarantino movie.

Nearly every character was either a blank stereotype (that would include every character of color in the novel, including Jenks. Perhaps Gischler should look into that), or a vague sketch with an odd quirk standing in for a personality (cross-dressing Dean, eccentric academic Valentine, weird, childish Reams, amoral chubbette Ginny...), or just a self-absorbed unredeemed jerk (Morgan, principally).
I have to admit that Jones and DelPrego seemed almost human - DelPrego even being possibly the only character allowed an emotion beyond anger fear or horniness - but that only served to make it all the more frustrating how lazily drawn the other characters were. I felt like I could see the novel it could have been with some more ruthless editing. I could have done without the Stubbs plot entirely if we could have gotten a little bit of Jenks trying to be Ellis and fit into the academic world (the scene of rap posturing fiting too completely under the heading of Jenks as stereotype), or of Morgan doing something other than drinking and feeling sorry for himself. We're told at the veeeeery end that he did finally write another poem, and maybe actually developed something like feelings for a couple of people other than himself. Seems like maybe he could have shown us that, instead of telling, you know? Especially if that's all the growth you're main character's going to get in the course of a novel.

This book does call for considerable suspension of belief, but
fiction tends to call on us for that suspension; in this story,
the reader has to be ready to suspend a large amount of belief
and logic, but that said, this is a very entertaining and funny
book.
One point of the story is that we tend to expect the life of a
small-college professor, especially just a visiting prof., to
be rather one-dimensional and even dull. But this particular
prof. suddenly finds himself immersed in those famous trilogy
of high-living qualities, guns, drugs and sex.
He bounces from one problem to another, and along the way, his
friends and students get more and more involved, to the point
where they end up getting shot, beat up, robbed and generallly
knocked around, and the prof. himself seems only interested in
getting a little "action" with some women and in gaining some
employment.
It is difficult to describe crimes and violence and make it
seem funny, knowing as we do the horrible reality of it from
our reading and daily lives, but this author manages to do just
that. When you read some of these violent encounters, and meet
the vicious characters involved, it is hard to laugh, but laugh
we will.
With the multiple plots and characters moving along, the pace
is very good and fast, and the results are sometimes surprising.
Life in a small college town may not be like this, but this writer does make it all sound intriguing.
There are gangsters, drug dealers, college girls on the make,
professors who seem to have little interest in teaching, mysterious mobsters who are hiding out while writing poetry,
and more characters than we can almost keep track of, and they
are all interesting, and we can't help but want to keep reading
about them.
The author does a very nice job of maintaining a very high level
of interest, and most readers will keep wanting more.

Gischler is a pro at making violence funny, without losing suspense or tension.

His second effort is assured, exciting, and features some of the most memorable characters in recent crime fiction.

If you like Elmore Leonard, Dave Barry, Carl Hiaasen, James Crumley, Joe Lansdale, or Donald Westlake, then you must read Victor Gischler.

I bought Mr. Gischler's debut effort, Gun Monkeys, on Amazon last month and enjoyed it so much I immediately went back and purchased his next two books, the first of which is Pistol Poets. I was extremely disappointed.

Yes, Mr. Gischler writes simple, choppy, hard-edged prose that is appealing and he is also pretty funny too, reminiscent of Elmore Leonard and Kinky Friedman, and Pistol Poets features both qualities but.........none of the characters were in the least sympathetic. Every last character was self-absorbed, amoral and made me slightly naseous. I could not identify with any of the novel's characters, much less like them, with the possible exception of one very minor character, but of course Gischler kills him, while the disgusting main characters walk scot-free. For me this turned what could have been another fun and funny read into a dismal experience.

My advice: if you don't need sympathetic protagonists then get this book because you will probably enjoy it. If you are like me and want someone you can identify with, or even like, you'll do better staying away from this book. The whole experience reminded me of having to read Kate Chopan's "The Awakening" in college, another depressing treatment of neurotics without any socially redeeming qualiites. Ugh.

Maybe I was unfair with my high expectations for this book. If I had never read Gun Monkeys, I would have been pleasantly amused by the Pistol Poets, and might have looked for more from Victor Gischler, (but, frankly, not with a real effort). So, maybe I set myself up for failure because Gun Monkeys was so good. (It really is a great book!) So, I expected a book of at least the humor and "pathos" of GM. What I got was something that seemed more a "kooky kopy" of Dave Barry/Kinky Friedman/Carl Hiaasen, etc. Good writers, but they do the wacky mystery novel better than this - much better. I was disappointed.

Most characters are one dimensional, and fairly uninteresting, (with the exception of "Jones", the amatuer poet/mob boss). They have implausable and unbelievable things happen to them, not as a consequence of a believable chain of events, but just to keep the "kookiness" at a high level. About halfway through the novel I lost interest, and put it aside for about two weeks, which I almost never do with a book. Even Professor Jay Morgan, the protagonist, lost my sympathy towards the end. The book had great potential, and I suspect was the victim of editing rewrites - at least I hope that that was the case. I look forward to the next Gischler novel, but if it is no better than the Pistol Poets, it'll be my last. Well, at least in hardback :)

A reasonable storeyline to this book but little 'wow' factor. Not great but not bad!

Jack Myers a bombadier/navigator with the 15th Air Force in Italy provides the reader with a unique take on the trials of an airman in WWII. His emphasis is on characterization of the many men he flew with in combat. Very different and very engrossing, including long passages on his copilot a man nicknamed the "War Lover."

This book provides an excellent recollection of certain events, some in graphic detail. He provides a mature insight into his young maturity going into the war.

A great book ! My father was a toggelier on a B-17 and I found
the book to be accurate, factual, informative and exciting. The
bombardier on a B-17 sat in the very nose of the aircraft and was
only 24 inches from being the most forward part of the plane. Not
even the pilot or copilot had a more frightening view of the flak
than the bombardier. First hand accounts of these historic events are
beoming fewer and fewer, this is a great one.

Just a great book. You really felt like you were there. You feel like he could get killed at any moment. Anyone could get killed at any moment. What a great read.

This was Mr. Morgan's best book that I have read. His photos and documents were easily readable. He still needs to use documentation, via endnotes or footnotes. In all, I would recommend this book to any reader interested in a very bad man, Wilbur Underhill. Much better effort.

Thanks to Mr. Morgan's thorough research the REAL story of Wilbur Underhill has been told. I grew up in Shawnee hearing about the shoot-out just a half block from my great-grandmother's home and I used to pass the house where the shooting took place on my way home from school. For years the bullet holes were still evident until later owners covered them with siding. But the old timers had different stories about how Underhill came to be in Shawnee, who was with him, which way he escaped and even which furniture store he was found in. Mr. Morgan had the facts to back up his book and it was very interesting. I was bothered, however, with the lack of editing and struggled with the errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation. Would have been better if it had been "cleaned up" a bit.

I commend Mr. Morgan on this book. It is the best of his books thus far. It was meticulously researched and accurate. A book is not meant to be judged by footnotes or endnotes. Neither proves the accuracy of the writer or researcher. This is a very readable book and should be a great addition to anyone's library or an asset to researchers who enjoy reading and studying about this genre, with or without footnotes.

R. D. Morgan has produced another great piece of work with this book. I am a big fan of Mr. Morgan's previous books, but this one topped them all. Mr. Morgan did an excellent job of researching this fact-filled story of Wilbur Underhill's life and crimes. You are taken inside the mind of one of the most feared outlaws of the 1920s and 30s. Mr. Morgan uncovered many letters written by Underhill himself, some were written just before his famous Kansas prison escape; which gives the reader a perspective that has never before been available. To any fan of crime literature this book is a must have. I for one could not put this book down until I reached the bloody end.

I just finished this latest book by R D Morgan and found it to be one of his best ever. Truely enjoyed reading it. Very well researched and most interesting to read. I would expect nothing less from R D Morgan. A must read for all interested in the true story Wilbur Underhill and the people whose lives he effected. Already looking forward to R D's next book.

Short stories on the careers of various gunfighters with a slant towards those from Texas. The stories are well written, fast moving with colorful language.

Many of his sources were first-hand accounts since the original was published in +/- 1934. Cunningham does not make judgements about the gunfighters, but the reader will note that the good guys were not always good and the bad guys weren't always bad. Some of the "gunfights" were nothing more than cold-blooded murders and reminded me of the "gang" killings in many of our larger cities today.

For those interested in self defense, the introduction by Rosa offers an observation that is proved true in many of the stories: "The true gunfighter was already confident of the result when he drew and fired. The mistake so many fast-draw fanatics make is to believe that speed is of essence, whereas a cool, cold-blooded, and determined approach, backed by the killer instinct, invariably wins."

Great book for those interested in western gunfighters.

I have bought several copies of this book since first reading it a few
years ago ... a recommendation in itself.

Triggernometry is a classic that should be in the collection of every student and enthusiast of the Old West. Cunningham provides an revealing window into the life and attitudes of the times. If some of the attitudes expressed in the book seem shocking today, remember the difference 100+ years can make in a culture. This book belongs right between Elmer Keith's "Sixguns", and the Zane Grey collection. While it presents some information that has since been revised through the work of other historians, Cunningham does a marvelous job of presenting the human side of the gunmen of the Old West.

Unlike other reviewers I did not find the contents to be a textbook of racism. One must be aware of the history of the times. Many of the politicos of the age were not interested in the rebuilding of the Union only the destruction of Southron culture. Many unqualified, angry blacks were given appointments with the State Police; therfore, men like Hardin and Lowerey responded to the circumstances with blood and fire. The author, living in the latter days of this periods, heard and saw it with the ears and eyes of a man of the age. Reenforced my beliefs regarding the Earps and soft soaped Billy the Kid. Excellent read!

I really enjoyed this book as it provided insight into some men who are long since forgotten with their stories buried by the likes of Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and Wild Bill etc. Unlike another reviewer I saw nothing racist about this book. It's not the author's responsiblity to sympathize with anyone. He just related the facts as he believed them. This is my favorite old west book of all time. Ah the good old days!

It's been a while since I read this book but I can tell you that it hit me in the gut. It was a book about Timothy McVeigh, one of America's dispicable criminals. I think the section in the book that struck me most was when the Feds went to his father's house. His father, a proud American, and former military man himself was shocked by the Feds treating him at first as if he was involved with his son's actions. You got the impression that the Feds felt sorry for this man who fathered Timothy and why wouldn't you be? As the Feds got to know the father, their guards went down because they realized that father and son were completely different in their views. A father is a proud American and the son is completely not. You read about how the divorce and his views of his mother helped shape his thinking. His relationship with his sisters and others also gave us insight to this lonely human being who obviously was distraught, mistrustful, and dangerous to his country after serving his country in 1991 Desert Storm. You begin to ask so many questions about why and how this disaster of the bomb going off at the Murrah building in Oklahoma City could have happened. The book answers or provides to clues to understanding him but it doesn't justify his actions. No, he was guilty of a horrendous crime which proved no purpose. He was ready to get arrested, sentenced, and executed. He showed no remorse to the victims, living and deceased, from his actions. Not a tear or a I'm sorry. Nothing, here was a great American soldier who became an American terrorist long before the events of September 11, 2001 crept in to our histories. Lana Padilla, Terry Nichols' former wife, wrote that it would have been easier to accept a foreigner and not a domestic terrorist. She is right! We could have taken it if it was a complete foreigner and stranger to our country! I remember thinking people were saying Middle Eastern terrorists but how wrong, how so wrong.

An otherwise fine account of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City is spoiled by being overly sympathetic & uncritical in its portrayal of Tim McVeigh. The book includes very good material about McVeigh, boosted by interviews with him ... & that's also its weakness. Perhaps the interviews drew the authors in a little too much to McVeigh. They didn't cross the line by much, but they did cross it. He is, after all, a mass murderer, even if he is also likeable. The portrayal of McVeigh's father is a particular strength of the book.

Books about terrorists and sociopaths always seem to inspire reviewers to use words like "chilling." It may be a cliche, but this massive, exhaustively researched biography of Timothy McVeigh is just that -- chilling. You will be left with a good understanding of how McVeigh did it, and why he says he did it. I would have liked more psychological insights into McVeigh's state of mind, however. How does an intelligent kid from a pretty ordinary blue-collar family go from somewht alienated teenager (nothing atypical there) to decorated soldier to gun nut to obsessed drifter to mass murderer? At one point the book quotes McVeigh's court-appointed psychiatrist who says it's "unfortunate" that McVeigh didn't get some "counseling." Isn't that the understatement of the century!

I read this book, and it is an excellent study of McVeigh. However, let me point out that I read the hardcover version, which was published before Tim's execution. Still, Tim had many ups and downs of his life. I'm sure that many people, myself included, have some sort of disrespect for the government, and the authors present Tim's case remarkably presented. But instead of using letters to congressmen urging them to change the system, McVeigh decided to take human life to make his case. This shows how extreme hatred of the government can become if one's twisted mind believes that killing is the only way to be heard. Second, I kind of sympathize with some periods of McVeigh's life that I've pretty much led myself, such as isolation from the social world (except for, in McVeigh's case, gun enthisiasts). This is a must read and an alert that any crazy American can fight for rights by selfishly ending promising lives.

We can add this book to the numerous articles done by CNN,ABC and NBC and the many other government mouthpieces that have given us plenty of sensationalism and "flexible facts" and biased hype, but very little truth, hard core FACTS and the undeniable evidence that points to a larger conspiracy and a huge government cover up. Just like the networks, the authors of the book put forth only what the government wants the masses to see. You don't get the facts when you read this book, people you get fantasy/fiction. If you want FACTS I suggest you visit the Official Oklahoma City Bombing Investigation team's website. Oklahoma State representative Charles Key has done a wonderful job investigating the bombing and his Final Report provides us with the evidence that didn't make it to trial-the numerous eyewitnesses who were not called to testify despite the important events they witnessed on April 19,1995. McVeigh was NOT the lone bomber and anyone who thinks so just does NOT have the facts at hand. GET THEM. Put this work of fiction down and honor the victims of the OKC bombing by seeking the TRUTH.

This is a great concise work of biography and history, written by one of the greatest living historians of the American West. I think some of the reviewers miss the point:this is a biogtraphy first, and an analysis of Little Bighorn secondly. This is probably the best bio of Custer for the interested to start with because of its meticulous research and the brevity of its length. Once you read "Cavalier in Buckskin" do not be surprised if you seek out Utley's other fine works of Western and Native American history. Utley's a class act, and so is this fine work which combines the best of academic and popular history. If you're at all curious-READ IT!

I have been an avid reader of Custer related literature
through the years and this is simply the best book on the market
on George Armstrong Custer. As a graduate student at Mississippi
State University and taking a course on the American West I gave
a lecture on Custer and recommended this book to the class.
Mr. Utley gives great detail on Custer's life. As with any
reader of Custer the debate rages on about General Terry's orders
to Custer and if they were obeyed or not. The author brought
out something I had not read before and that being the affidavet
of a cook who overheard a conservation between Terry and Custer.
A great book on Custer and especially on the Battle of the
Little Bighorn. Also, being a Civil War buff I liked the way the author mentioned how former Confederate generals were some
of Custer's biggest defenders after the battle.
If one were looking for a starting place on Custer this book
would be the one.

This is a very short biography (just under 200 pages, not counting the pictures) of one of the most flamboyant and controversial military figures in our nation's history. Volumes could be written about George Custer, and indeed have been, and yet still there could never be a consensus as to the man's character, his skill as a warrior, and the amount of blame he should shoulder for charging headlong into immortality when he and part of his regiment were wiped out at the Little Bighorn. Custer is one of those figures on whom it would be difficult to write a good biography in 500 pages. Somehow, Utley has done it in 200.

This work is by no means thorough, but rather provides a good introduction and outline of Custer's life. Not a lot of detail is provided about any one phase of Custer's adult life--boy general, frontier greenhorn, Indian fighter extraordinaire--and yet there is enough information here to get a good idea of what Custer the man must have been like. I think it is outside of the scope of this book to psychoanalyze this complex individual, or to analyze his several controversial achievements, from Civil War battles to an Indian attack on the Washita River to rushing into battle at the Little Bighorn without the necessary reconnaissance, and yet Utley manages to put things into a perspective that at least seems reasonable and fair, if not conclusive. His section on the Little Bighorn battle is concise, to the point, and objective, and, though he tends to imply that the blame for Custer's death cannot be fixed entirely on Custer's rashness, yet he does not attempt to deify or exonerate the man wholly from blame.

This book was meant to be a short introduction into Custer's life, and in that it fills its purpose completely. For students seeking a deeper and more thorough understanding of Custer, however, a larger work is needed. Still, this book is immensely valuable in that it provides a short, objective, and concise narrative of the life of George Armstrong Custer.

This biography of George Armstrong Custer devotes most of its pages to his post Civil War career. Most people only know that he died at the Little Bighorn battle; they know the legend or the symbol, not the real person. Chapter 1 discusses his legend from 1876 to the present. Before his last campaign Custer charged the Grant administration with fraud and corruption. So whether he was a "victim of Grant's Indian policy" or a "foolhardy glory hunter" depended on the politics of the beholder.

Custer's postwar career depended on the support of Sherman and Sheridan ("Custer never let me down"). Since the Indians kept far away from the railroads, building the Northern Pacific railroad would ethnically cleanse the northern Dakota territory. The railroads were given tens of thousands of square miles of land ("sunblasted in summer, frozen in winter" p.125). They could not be sold to settlers until Indians were removed and neutralized. Settlers would then buy railroad lands, then use the railroad to transport their produce and supplies. The army's task was to implement this political policy; they only followed orders. There were treaties such as at Medicine Lodge in October 1867. But the Indians had no idea that they were giving up the country they claimed as their own (p.59).

The announced purpose of the Black Hills Expedition of 1874 was to find a site for a new fort, and for scientific exploration. The discovery of gold meant that miners would flock to these Indian lands via the Northern Pacific. The chief geologist, and Lt. Col. Fred Grant, cast doubt on this report: it might have been planted (p.141)! These lands could not be developed while the Indians held title, unless a war was created to negate the treaty (p.147). The Interior Dept. issued an ultimatum to the Sitting Bull bands: move to the Great Sioux Reservation or be driven in (p.156). But the Indians were immobilized in winter! Their failure to migrate was used to start a war. The military campaign started in April 1876. Custer believed that the Indians should be civilized into Christian farmers, but "if I were an Indian I often think that I would prefer to adhere to the free open plains rather than submit to a reservation" (p.149).

Just before his last campaign Custer testified against the actions of Secretary of War Belknap. Was he looking for some heroic action to gain popular acclaim? Was he suffering from any ailment that could affect his judgment? Chapter 9 discusses the "Judgments" on the defeat. Utley wonders if Custer received his chest wound at the beginning of the battle, and this demoralized and confused their defense? This would account for much that is puzzling about the battle (p.199). Those paintings of "Custer's Last Stand" are imagined. The Sioux fired their rifles and arrows from long range while concealed (p.190). They were too smart for a "Charge of the Light Brigade".

Robert M. Utley is probably our most thoughtful scholar of George Armstrong Custer and his ultimate demise at the Little Bighorn in 1876. He has studied Custer since a boy, including writing his Master's thesis on him and spending years as a guide at the Custer Battlefield site in Montana. One of Utley's purposes behind writing this book was to "coerce me into deciding what I thought" of Custer. It's pretty obvious by the end that he thinks pretty highly of him, despite all his faults. Custer was a man full of contradictions: he demanded obedience to orders from others but didn't feel he needed to obey orders himself; he could be cruel to some while favoring select others; he was generous and selfish, egotistical as well as modest. (Perhaps the biggest contradiction was how one of the most successful Civil War cavalry generals could come to so ignoble an end.)

Men either hated or loved him; few were indifferent - thus the controversy regarding his actions on the Little Bighorn. Utley believes that Custer acted as one would expect a self-assured, ambitious, enterprising (critics, of course, would use different adjectives: self-serving, glory-seeking, impulsive) officer to act at the Last Stand, even though he had limited information, and finds more fault with Reno's and Benteen's inaction at the crucial moment when more decisive action may have saved the day. But no one will ever know with total exactness what happened that day, which is why the legend of Custer looms so large. And for Utley that is the "significant Custer," the one that has made the biggest "impact on human minds." Utley writes about that Custer with critical admiration, and one appreciates the controlled, clear-eyed appraisal. It's the best short biography on Custer out there.