Synopsis
Chronicles the life of the famous warrior, Sitting Bull, correcting many common misconceptions about the legendary native American. By the author of The Last Days of the Sioux. 35,000 first printing. $35,000 ad/promo. History Bk Club Main. BOMC. QPB.
Reviews
To most white Americans of the mid-19th century, Sitting Bull embodied the hostile native. To the Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux, he was a patriot and a respected political, military and spiritual leader. Utley ( Cavalier in Buckskin ), a former chief historian of the National Park Service, presents a definitive biography of this legendary warrior. Born in 1831 on the great Plains, son of a chief, Sitting Bull was a seasoned warrior by the age of 15; at 26, he was tribal war chief. As the conflicts with the U.S. Army began in the 1850s, Sitting Bull represented the spirit of resistance among his people. Utley follows the increasing hostilities of succeeding years and gives a vivid account of the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. Three years after fleeing to Canada, Sitting Bull returned to the U.S. and reservation life. In 1890, he was shot by Indian police sent to arrest him before his intended departure for a sundance at another reservation. Utley believes that the arrest was unjustified, but that the shooting, which led to the Battle of Wounded Knee a few months later, was not premeditated. Photos. History Book club main selection; BOMC and QPB selections.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Enormous, groundbreaking biography of the great Lakota Sioux war chief (c. 1831-90). To date, the standard biography of Sitting Bull has been Stanley Vestal's Sitting Bull, Chief of the Sioux, written decades ago and more a triumph of literature than of history. Now, utilizing Vestal's original notes (collected in the 1920's and 30's and featuring interviews with many warriors who knew Sitting Bull intimately), as well as his own extensive research, Utley (Billy the Kid, 1989, etc.) has forged a new portrait of the Sioux warrior that places him squarely within his social and historical context. Whether Utley succeeds in his ambition of writing from both white and Native American perspectives is arguable--can anyone merge the two?--but he details with exquisite care and objectivity the life of the Lakota in the post-Civil War era, along with the intentions and actions of the Federal government. Into this powder-keg situation was born Sitting Bull, who soon demonstrated the revered Lakota male traits of bravery, humility, wisdom, and generosity. Utley, benefiting greatly from massive recent scholarship, traces Sitting Bull's rise as a war chief and as a wichasha wakan (holy man) with greater sensitivity to Native American ways than did previous biographers. In doing so, he puts the lie to earlier portraits of Sitting Bull as a cowardly ``pretender to high rank,'' revealing him as the supreme Sioux chief, a man ``distant and aloof from all whites,'' obsessed with his people's freedom, perhaps too stubborn but unquestionably a ``towering figure.'' Even the years of defeat--including a stint with Buffalo Bill's circus--shine with dignity, and Utley shows that Sitting Bull's death--which the author, going against popular belief, argues was not an assassination but an accident--marked a tragic loss for all Americans, white or Native American. The new standard against which all future lives of Sitting Bull will be measured. (Thirty-two b&w photographs, three maps) (History Book Club Main Selection) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Utley ( Billy the Kid , Univ. of Nebraska Pr., 1989; Cavalier in Buckskin , Univ. of Oklahoma Pr., 1988, among others) turns his attention to one of the best-known Native American leaders. Utley draws extensively from the papers of Stanley Vestal, who wrote what most consider to be the standard biography, Sitting Bull, Champion of the Sioux (Univ. of Oklahoma Pr., 1989). Unlike Vestal's work, or Alexander B. Adams's popular Sitting Bull: An Epic of the Plains (1973. o.p.), Utley is grounded in the historical method, placing Sitting Bull in the context of his time and culture. Sitting Bull emerges as a complex leader who defeated Custer during what could be termed the "lance" portion of his life but was killed by his own people while defending them against white encroachment--as a "shield." This book is expected to become the standard account on Sitting Bull for both the scholar and the armchair student of the American West. Highly recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/93.
- Daniel Liestman, Seattle Pacific Univ. Lib.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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