"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
As McMurtry recounts, Crazy Horse was born around 1840 in what is now South Dakota. Already the arrival of white settlers--who brought with them such mixed blessings as metal tools, firearms, and smallpox--had begun to transform the culture of the Plains Indians. But soon a more ominous note crept into the relationship: "The Plains Indians were beginning to be seen as mobile impediments; what they stood in the way of was progress, a concept dear to the American politician." As whites sought to remove these impediments with increasing brutality, Crazy Horse led his people in a sporadic and ultimately doomed resistance, which peaked at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. Within a year the young warrior (and occasional visionary) had surrendered to the United States Army. Four months later he was dead, stabbed in a highly suspicious scuffle with white and Indian policemen, and the Sioux resistance died with its legendary leader.
McMurtry's powers of compression are formidable. In no more than a few rapid paragraphs, he gives a sense of how this "prairie Platonist" divided the world into transient things and eternal, invisible spirits. He also conveys his opinion of Caucasian double-dealing with fine, acerbic efficiency: "In August, Custer emerged and described the beauties of the Black Hills in mouthwatering terms. In another life he would have made a wonderful real-estate developer. In this case he sold one of the most beautiful pieces of real estate in the West to a broke, depressed public who couldn't wait to get into those hills and start scratching up gold." McMurtry's Crazy Horse is the leanest and least rhetorical version yet of this American tragedy--which makes it, oddly enough, among the most moving. --James Marcus
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Book Description Condition: New. Brand New! Not Overstocks or Low Quality Book Club Editions! Direct From the Publisher! We're not a giant, faceless warehouse organization! We're a small town bookstore that loves books and loves it's customers! Buy from Lakeside Books!. Seller Inventory # OTF-S-9780143034803
Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9780143034803
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Brand New!. Seller Inventory # 0143034804
Book Description Paperback or Softback. Condition: New. Crazy Horse 0.27. Book. Seller Inventory # BBS-9780143034803
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 3524729-n
Book Description Condition: New. Brand New. Seller Inventory # 0143034804
Book Description Condition: New. Buy with confidence! Book is in new, never-used condition. Seller Inventory # bk0143034804xvz189zvxnew
Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published. Seller Inventory # 353-0143034804-new
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # I-9780143034803
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Reprint. Seller Inventory # DADAX0143034804