The Custer Reader

by Paul Andrew Hutton, Robert M. Utley

Overview

George Armstrong Custer, America’s most famously unfortunate soldier, has been the subject of scores of books, but The Custer Reader is unique as a substantial source of classic writings about and by him. Here is Custer as seen by himself, his contemporaries, and leading scholars. Even those steeped in Custeriana will discover new insights in these pieces. Combining first-person narratives, essays, and photographs, this book provides a complete introduction to Custer’s controversial personality and career and the evolution of the Custer myth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780806134659
Publisher:	University of Oklahoma Press
Publication date:	11/29/2004
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	608
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.36(d)

About the Author

Paul Andrew Hutton is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of New Mexico and author of Soldiers West: Biographies from the Military Frontier and numerous other books and articles.


Robert M. Utley served in the National Park Service for 25 years in various capacities, including Chief Historian from 1964 to 1972. Since his retirement from the federal government in 1980, he has devoted himself full-time to historical research and writing with a specialty in the American West. He is author, among many articles and books he has published, of Cavalier in Buckskin: George Armstrong Custer and the Western Military Frontier, Revised Edition; Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life; Lone Star Lawmen: The Second Century of the Texas Rangers; and The Commanders: Civil War Generals Who Shaped the American West. A founder of the Western History Association, Utley has served on its governing council and as its president.
 

Editorial Reviews

"May well become the definitive book on this mythical and thoroughly controversial figure."—AB Bookman Weekly

AB Bookman Weekly

"Very seldom is a book a pure joy to read; The Custer Reader is such a book. It offers standard texts and fresh insights about the United States' most famous—and most maligned—military figure."—True West

True West

"[These] well-illustrated pages contain just about everything you'd want to know about the impetuous, courageous but not overly clever [Custer]. . . . Some of the most gripping reports are those of officers who actually participated in the fatal expedition and its maneuvers in the Black Hills of Dakota Territory. The Indians get their word in, too, most notably a grisly account of the 1876 battle by an eighty-year-old Cheyenne woman named Kate Bighead. . . . Certainly the dashing, war-loving Long Hair—which is what the Indians called their implacable enemy—never seemed more vivid a figure than in this unusual anthology."—Parade Magazine

Parade Magazine

"Interest in the career of George Armstrong Custer has been unflagging since his death in battle near the Little Bighorn River in 1876, and books and articles about him have flowed steadily. It is time, then, that a diligent scholar and able editor should seek out the best that has been written by and about Custer, both by contemporaries and modern scholars, and package it for those who thrive on Custeriana as well as for those who would simply like to know more about him. Mr. Hutton has done a fine job of presenting both the man and the many myths that have grown up around the boy general of the Civil War and the colorful Indian fighter of the plains."—Washington Times

Washington Times