Son Of The Morning Star: General Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn - Softcover

Connell, Evan S

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1844137635 ISBN 13: 9781844137633

Publisher: Pimlico, 2005

Synopsis

On a scorching June Sunday in 1876, thousands of Indian warriors - Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho - converged on a grassy ridge above the valley of Montana's Little Bighorn River. On the ridge five companies of United States cavalry - 262 soldiers, comprising officers and troopers - fought desperately but hopelessly. When the guns fell silent, no soldier - including their commanding officer, Lt Col. George Armstrong Custer - had survived. Custer's Last Stand is among the most enduring events in American history - 130 years after the fact, books continue to be written and people continue to argue about even the most basic details surrounding the Little Bighorn. Evan S. Connell, whom Joyce Carol Oates has described as 'one of our most interesting and intelligent American writers', wrote what continues to be the most reliable - and compulsively readable - account of the subject. Connell makes good use of his research and novelist's eye for story and detail to re-create the heroism, foolishness and savagery of this crucial chapter in the history of the West.

About this title

Review:

On June 25, 1876, General George Armstrong Custer and some 200 cavalrymen under his command blundered into a steep-sided ravine along the banks of Montana's Little Bighorn River. They never came out; several thousand Cheyenne, Sioux, and Arapaho warriors saw to that. The name and the event of the Little Bighorn have subsequently entered into American mythology, reverberating throughout the nation's history. Custer's famous demise has yielded thousands of books, and Son of the Morning Star is exceptional among them: part anthropological study of Plains Indian life, part military history, and part character study of the principal actors in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Evan Connell's work presents the first truly balanced account of Custer's career.

Review:

"Impressive in its massive presentation of information . . . "Son of the Morning Star "makes good reading--its prose is elegant, its tone the voice of dry wit, its meandering narrative skillfully crafted. Mr. Connell is above all a storyteller, and the story he tells is vastly more complicated than who did what to whom on June 25, 1876."--Page Stenger, "The New York Times Book Review" ""Son of the Morning Star" leaves the reader astonished."--"The Washington Post" "A scintillating book, thoroughly researched and brilliantly constructed."--"The Wall Street Journal "

About this edition

• Publisher: Pimlico
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1844137635
• ISBN 13: 9781844137633
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448