The Nature of Things

In April 2011, I read and reviewed Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S. C. Gwynne. I thought it was a remarkable book that deserved a wider audience and I recommended it to my readers.  Recently, I came across the book again and I went back and read my review. It reminded me of how much I had liked Empire of the Summer Moon . So much so that I decided to run my review again. Here it is, for your consideration... *~*~*~* The story of Cynthia Ann Parker and her son, Quanah, is somewhat known in Texas where I live, but I doubt that it is much known in the rest of the country. It should be. One would hope that S.C. Gwynne's powerful book,  Empire of the Summer Moon , which came out last year, and was one of  The New York Times'  100 Notable Books of the Year, has made it more widely known.  Cynthia Ann Parker was a nine-year-old Anglo girl living on the frontier of...

The story of Cynthia Ann Parker and her son, Quanah, is somewhat known in Texas where I live, but I doubt that it is much known in the rest of the country. It should be. One would hope that S.C. Gwynne's powerful book, Empire of the Summer Moon , which came out last year, and was one of The New York Times' 100 Notable Books of the Year, has made it more widely known. Cynthia Ann Parker was a nine-year-old Anglo girl living on the frontier of Texas near present-day Dallas in May of 1836 when the Comanches swept down from the plains onto her family's fortified compound and overwhelmed the family. Several members of the family were brutally killed in the attack and two women and three children were captured. The reality of such raids at the time was that men and infants generally were killed outright. Women and children were taken captive when possible. The women would be gang-raped and otherwise brutalized. They might become slaves to a Comanche family or they might be tortur...