Audiobook18 hours
The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West
Written by Peter Cozzens
Narrated by John Pruden
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
With the end of the Civil War, the nation recommenced its expansion onto traditional Indian tribal lands, setting off a wide-ranging conflict that would last more than three decades. In an exploration of the wars and negotiations that destroyed tribal ways of life even as they made possible the emergence of the modern United States, Peter Cozzens gives us both sides in comprehensive and singularly intimate detail. He illuminates the encroachment experienced by the tribes and the tribal conflicts over whether to fight or make peace, and explores the squalid lives of soldiers posted to the frontier and the ethical quandaries faced by generals who often sympathized with their native enemies. As the action moves from Kansas and Nebraska to the Southwestern desert to the Dakotas and the Pacific Northwest, we encounter a pageant of fascinating characters including Custer, Sherman, Grant, and a host of other military and political figures, as well as great native leaders such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, and Red Cloud. For the first time The Earth Is Weeping brings them all together in the fullest account to date of how the West was won.
Author
Peter Cozzens
Peter Cozzens is an independent scholar and Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Department of State. He is author or editor of nine highly acclaimed Civil War books, including The Darkest Days of the War: The Battles of Iuka and Corinth.
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Reviews for The Earth is Weeping
Rating: 4.321917616438356 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
73 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very well written and depressing (note to self, don’t read about the Indian Wars, Holocaust or American slavery for an uplifting story). So much deceit and manipulated crises. A part of U.S. history that I wasn’t taught.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Well written. I didn't understand how complicated it all was and how simplistically we approached our natives.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In my experience, there are two types of history book which you know as soon as you pick up will be nothing but unrelieved tragedy. Books about the Holocaust, and books about the Native Americans. This is as good an entry as I have read in the latter field, giving a balanced view of the 30 years between 1861 and 1891 when Native Americans fought bravely but hopelessly against the surge of white settlement. There were heroes and villains on both sides (many more of the latter on the white side, inevitably). I think the best thing about the book is the even spread of coverage of all the conflicts. Famous and well-covered campaigns like Little Bighorn and the Apache wars are given no more than their fair share amongst lesser-known stories like the Modoc war, the running battles of the Nez Perce and the bitter Ute wars. But overall the sense of inevitable tragedy is overwhelming, the book ending on a wistful note of complete loss. This is not an enjoyable book, but its absorbing, wrenching and extremely well-written.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thoroughly depressing with too many bad guys on both sides of the fight. But as I was reading I started thinking about the Fourteenth Amendment and how it was possible to treat Native Americans as shabbily as we did. Didn't the Fourteenth Amendment obviously make them "natural born citizens"? Turns out the answer to that question is NO, at least until 1924. But several states ignored that, and that just depresses me even more. Read this and have your eyes opened, or don't read it and stay happy.