Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #81534 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780300151176
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Booklist
This comprehensive history of the Comanche people treats them as an independent power rather than as victims of American westward expansion. And though Hamalainen frames his arguments within scholars’ debates on proper perspectives toward the Comanche, general readers interested in the history of the Southwest will discover his to be a fascinatingly informative volume in its explanatory and narrative modes. Between the Comanche’s initial appearance in Spanish records in 1706 to their final defeat by the U.S. in 1874, Hamalainen traces an ascent in Comanche numbers, wealth, and influence that enabled them to dominate western Texas and New Mexico for decades. Interpreting such Comanche activities as raiding and slaving as distinct instruments of imperialism, Hamalainen credits these practices with endowing the Comanche with their fierce frontier reputation within the extensive Great Plains trading network they operated. A valuable library resource for its subject. --Gilbert Taylor

Review
"'Cutting-edge revisionist western history... Immensely informative, particularly about activities in the eighteenth century.' Larry McMurtry, The New York Review of Books"

Review
�H�m�l�inen not only puts Native Americans back into the story but also gives them�particularly the Comanche�recognition as major historical players who shaped events and outcomes.��Sherry Smith, Southern Methodist University, author of Reimagining Indians: Native Americans Through Anglo Eyes, 1880-1940 (Sherry Smith 20080629)

�The Comanche Empire is a landmark study that will make readers see the history of southwestern America in an entirely new way.��David J. Weber, author of B�rbaros: Spaniards and Their Savages in the Age of Enlightenment (David J. Weber 20080620)

�This exhilarating book is not just a pleasure to read; important and challenging ideas circulate through it and compel attention. It is a nuanced account of the complex social, cultural, and biological interactions that the acquisition of the horse unleashed in North America, and a brilliant analysis of a Comanche social formation that dominated the Southern Plains. Parts of the book will be controversial, but the book as a whole is a tour de force.��Richard White, author of The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (Richard White 20080711)

�The Comanche Empire is an impressive achievement. That a major Native power emerged and dominated the interior of the continent compels a re-thinking of well worn narratives about colonial America and westward expansion, about the relative power of European and Native societies, and about the directions of change. The book makes a major contribution to Native American history and challenges our understanding of the ways in which American history unfolded.��Colin G. Calloway, author of One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West before Lewis and Clark (Colin G. Calloway 20090401)

�Pekka H�m�l�inen profoundly alters our understanding of the American Southwest, asserting that Comanche expansion and domination eclipsed European imperialism over the 18th and early 19th centuries. Readers of this ambitious and discerning ethnohistory learn close-up how the Comanches made colonial as well as native communities the building blocks of their own ascendancy. In a counter-narrative to frontier history and a revision of borderlands study, H�m�l�inen features the contingency of historical change and the agency of Indian people.��Daniel H. Usner, Vanderbilt University (Daniel H. Usner )

"Cutting-edge revisionist western history. . . . Immensely informative, particularly about activities in the eighteenth century."�Larry McMurtry, The New York Review of Books (Larry McMurtry The New York Review of Books )

"[A] fascinating and richly detailed study."�Si Dunn, Dallas Morning News (Si Dunn Dallas Morning News )

"The Comanche Empire is a hugely important documentary survey of the Comanche Nation, as known from documentary sources between the late 17th and the late 19th centuries."�Ed Baker, The Austin Chronicle (Ed Baker Austin Chronicle )

"A fascinating new book, details [the Comanches] unusual and colorful history. . . . [H�m�l�inen] has rescued the Comanches from myth and distortion and given them their due in the sprawling epic that is our American story."�John Sledge, Mobile Press-Register (AL) (John Sledge Mobile Press-Register (AL) )

"Comanche Empire is an impressive, well-written, and important study that should significantly influence future metanarratives, whether they include all or parts of Texas, the West, the Borderlands, or even general histories of the United States and Mexico."�Ty Cashion, Journal of Military History (Ty Cashion Journal of Military History )

Customer Reviews

Valuable Addition to the Field
This well-written and tightly argued work on the Comanche Indians and their relations with the Spanish, French, Americans and with other Native peoples might be called a foreign-policy history of the Comanche empire. The author's long-awaited book details how the Comanche made use of their physical and cultural environment to develop an empire that controlled much of the southern plains, dominated trade within the southern and central Great Plains and Southwest, shaped the development of Spanish and French colonies in the region, and eventually collapsed from internal pressures, environmental difficulties and U.S. military action.
General readers interested in a new way of thinking about the Comanche and the history of the Southwest will enjoy this readable work. Scholars too will find much of use, including copious and meticulous citations and a good index. I highly recommend this work.

Comanche History, 1700-1880 from the Comanche Side
This is an outstanding scholarly work well deserving of five stars. In some respects I wonder if it could have been written by an American (the author is Finnish) since it sharply contrasts with the politically correct myth of the American Indians, always fighting in defense of their homeland and way of life against the overwhelming encroachments of evil Europeans. Some will use the term "revisionist" to describe this work, but more accurately it should be described simply as Comanche history for two centuries from the Comanche viewpoint. To put the contrast in more familiar terms, until recently almost all books on the World War II Eastern Front between Germany and the Soviet Union have been told from the German side. Now David Glantz and others are writing books that tell the Soviet side. Are they "revisionist?"

The author traces the Comanches from origins among the Shoshones, moving through Colorado and becoming allied with the Utes (other authors describe the Comanches as being forced out into the Great Plains by the Utes), acquiring horses and guns from Mexican traders, then spreading into Northern Texas and surrounding country. There they established a virtual "empire", or more accurately, a sphere of hegemony and influence, that extended into six US states and several states in Northern Mexico by 1840. This can be considered as a region controlled loosely by semi-nomads who would eventually face the problem of maintaining their "empire" through population growth in permanent settlements. (The reader should look for parallels to the Golden Horde on the plains of Southern Russia.) The Comanches did not always exterminate all other people in their sphere of influence, but rather used them for trade, a source of slaves, and goods acquired through war and negotiation.

The Comanche collapse came swiftly through a combination of factors, notably drought, disease, and the decimation of the Bison herds through natural causes and over-hunting. By the time they faced serious opposition from Americans (Texans), they were already in steep decline. But until 1840, Comancheria was ruled by the Comanches, taking what they wanted from people on their borders, whether Anglos, Mexicans, or other Indians.

The Comanches were not a benign people, frequently murdering, raping, and enslaving those who opposed them or simply had nothing else of use for the warriors to take. The author describes their society extremely well (much like the Apaches except for the roles of the horse and bison.) Their warrior society was able to undertake raids over 1,000 miles from the heart of Comancheria into Mexico, and even the Lipan Apaches were forced to migrate to escape annihilation. The author points out that the Comanches were fortunate in their timing in that they were able to build their empire in an area not particularly coveted by the Mexicans or Americans until a hundred years later. But his model of an expansionist Indian nation is in direct opposition to the paternalistic tomes normally emanating from academia, although it also fits to a large degree with the history of other aggressive tribes such as the Aztecs, Pohatans, Iroquois and Sioux (Lakota.)

This work is an easy read and stuffed full of facts not normally found in books on the Comanches, or for that matter, on any Indian tribe. All to often, the Indians are simply the enemy and described from the viewpoint of the settler or Army officer, or if the work is coming from academia, it's a discourse on victimhood and how the Indians were mistreated, cheated, and faced with genocide. This book shows them to be real human beings, warts and all, aggressive and defensive, merciful and cruel. There is much to learn here, and if the reader re-assesses his opinions and attitudes towards American Indians as a result, it is all to the good.

If the reader is interested in American history, buy and read this book. Its importance goes far beyond the Comanches.

A less-than-brief review by Frank McLynn in the Literary Review (it escapes me why the LR would ask a Brit to review a book by a Finn on America -- although he did write Villa & Zapate and Wagons West) (Google "Frank McLynn on the Commanche Empire) will give you a pretty good idea of the book's detail content, but be forewarned that some of McLynn's comments are wrong. The Comanches did not war against the Fox Indians and McLynn apparently does not understand the author's math in regards to the bison herd. 6.5 bison per person per year yields 260,000 animals taken if the Comanche and allied population is 40,000, not 20,000. His remarks about the required academic jargon for peer acceptance are correct however -- the author should have avoided the garbage so loved in the ivory towers in a book slated for wide dissemination. For me, the appearance of academic jargon at various times was this book's only flaw.

4 or 5 stars? OK, 5
I could not find a good reason to give this book fewer than 5 stars. While it might not be perfect, I am not a historian and might miss some imperfections in it. This is a very comprehensive and well-written history of the Comanche Nation, from its beginnings around 1700 to the end of its life on the plains as a free-ranging tribe of raiders and buffalo hunters. The popular concept of cowboys vs Indians was a very late episode in Comanche history. Most of their history for which we have records are their dealing with the Spaniards and Mexicans. Their dealings with Texans and Americans came near the end. The importance of the horse is stressed by the author. In places it is stressed almost too much, as when we learn, and learn again, that horses on the southern plains survived Winter much better than those of the more northerly tribes. Thus the sheltered river valleys were crucial for food and protection of the huge horse herds that the Comanches maintained. I lost track of how many times that sycamore bark was mentioned as a vital horse fodder in Winter. No mention was made of what Cheyenne and Lakota horses ate in Winter. The famous Comanche chief Quanah Parker is mentioned in passing a couple of times, but we never learn why he was famous. The author never tells, unless that detail is buried in the voluminous notes that accompany the text. I was not aware of the importance of Comanche raids into Mexico as being an important factor for the failure of Mexico to resist the US in the Mexican War of 1846-48. The raids nearly drained northern Mexico of serviceable horses and mules, leaving nags for Mexican military use. By 1874, the Comanche horse culture on the souther plans was over, the bison nearly gone, and Comanche forced onto a reservation. Overall, this was a very interesting book and filled a lots of gaps in my understanding of the Old West.