Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist McMurtry (Lonesome Dove) recounts six Western frontier massacres in this meandering mixture of memoir, literary criticism, jeremiad and history. "In most cases," McMurtry acknowledges, "the only undisputed fact about a given massacre is the date on which it occurred." Rightly enough, such disputes don't keep him from approaching these subjects with strong opinions. "Whites killed whites" at Mountain Meadows (1857); "a camp of one hundred percent peaceful Indians" was attacked at Sand Creek (1864). At Marias River (1870), Blackfeet Indians "dying anyway" of smallpox were slaughtered, and at Camp Grant (1871) "all the people killed-excepting one old man and a `well-grown' boy-were women and children." McMurtry's easygoing voice and hop-and-skip pace leave comprehensiveness to the many books to which he refers, but his own volume would have been stronger, and more accessible to readers unfamiliar with frontier history, if it had been organized more systematically. As is, the book feels tossed off, and his passing references to contemporary massacres-in Rwanda, New York and Iraq, for example-don't add much resonance. Agent, Andrew Wylie. (Dec.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Here are the true stories of the West's most terrible massacres-Sacramento River, Mountain Meadows, Sand Creek, Marias River, Camp Grant, and Wounded Knee, among others. These massacres involved Americans killing Indians, but also Indians killing Americans and, in the case of the currently hugely controversial Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857, Mormons slaughtering a party of American settlers, including women and children.
McMurtry's evocative descriptions of these events recall their full horror, and the deep, constant apprehension and dread endured by both pioneers and Indians. By modern standards the death tolls were often small-Custer's defeat in 1876 was the only encounter to involve more than two hundred dead-yet in the thinly populated West of that time, the violent extinction of a hundred people had a colossal impact on all sides. Though the perpetrators often went unpunished, many guilty and traumatized men felt compelled to tell and retell the horror they had committed. Nephi Johnson, one of the participants in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, died crying "Blood, blood, blood!"
McMurtry's powerful prose captures the gritty essence of this tumultuous and pivotal era, and the fascinating and remarkable men and women-American and Indian, celebrated and forgotten-who shaped the West, and would kill to keep it.
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McMurtry's evocative descriptions of these events recall their full horror, and the deep, constant apprehension and dread endured by both pioneers and Indians. By modern standards the death tolls were often small-Custer's defeat in 1876 was the only encounter to involve more than two hundred dead-yet in the thinly populated West of that time, the violent extinction of a hundred people had a colossal impact on all sides. Though the perpetrators often went unpunished, many guilty and traumatized men felt compelled to tell and retell the horror they had committed. Nephi Johnson, one of the participants in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, died crying "Blood, blood, blood!"
McMurtry's powerful prose captures the gritty essence of this tumultuous and pivotal era, and the fascinating and remarkable men and women-American and Indian, celebrated and forgotten-who shaped the West, and would kill to keep it.
Oh What a Slaughter: Massacres in the American West: 1846--1890
Here are the true stories of the West's most terrible massacres-Sacramento River, Mountain Meadows, Sand Creek, Marias River, Camp Grant, and Wounded Knee, among others. These massacres involved Americans killing Indians, but also Indians killing Americans and, in the case of the currently hugely controversial Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857, Mormons slaughtering a party of American settlers, including women and children.
McMurtry's evocative descriptions of these events recall their full horror, and the deep, constant apprehension and dread endured by both pioneers and Indians. By modern standards the death tolls were often small-Custer's defeat in 1876 was the only encounter to involve more than two hundred dead-yet in the thinly populated West of that time, the violent extinction of a hundred people had a colossal impact on all sides. Though the perpetrators often went unpunished, many guilty and traumatized men felt compelled to tell and retell the horror they had committed. Nephi Johnson, one of the participants in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, died crying "Blood, blood, blood!"
McMurtry's powerful prose captures the gritty essence of this tumultuous and pivotal era, and the fascinating and remarkable men and women-American and Indian, celebrated and forgotten-who shaped the West, and would kill to keep it.
McMurtry's evocative descriptions of these events recall their full horror, and the deep, constant apprehension and dread endured by both pioneers and Indians. By modern standards the death tolls were often small-Custer's defeat in 1876 was the only encounter to involve more than two hundred dead-yet in the thinly populated West of that time, the violent extinction of a hundred people had a colossal impact on all sides. Though the perpetrators often went unpunished, many guilty and traumatized men felt compelled to tell and retell the horror they had committed. Nephi Johnson, one of the participants in the Mountain Meadows Massacre, died crying "Blood, blood, blood!"
McMurtry's powerful prose captures the gritty essence of this tumultuous and pivotal era, and the fascinating and remarkable men and women-American and Indian, celebrated and forgotten-who shaped the West, and would kill to keep it.
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Oh What a Slaughter: Massacres in the American West: 1846--1890
Oh What a Slaughter: Massacres in the American West: 1846--1890
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Product Details
BN ID: | 2940170868568 |
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Publisher: | Tantor Audio |
Publication date: | 11/01/2005 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
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