Scalp Dance: Amazon.ca: Thomas Goodrich: Books

Product Description

From Library Journal

Goodrich, whose previous books, Black Flag (LJ 2/15/95) and Bloody Dawn (LJ 1/1/91), told of Civil War-era Kansas, weaves various firsthand narratives into this account focusing on two episodes of warfare against the Indians: campaigns in Kansas during 1867-68, and the Sioux War of 1876-77. Fully a third of the book is concerned with Custer's campaigns in Kansas and Montana. Goodrich has produced a smooth, flowing story, but the viewpoint is that of the settler and soldier on the frontier. The voice of the Indian explaining why he went to war is not heard. Serious collections on the West will already have the original works from which this book is drawn. Others may wish to consider this for purchase.?Stephen H. Peters, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description

Some of the most savage war in world history was waged on the American Plains from 1865 to 1879. As settlers moved west following the Civil War, they found powerful Indian tribes barring the way. When the U.S. Army intervened, a bloody and prolonged conflict ensued. Drawing heavily from diaries, letters, and memoirs from American Plains settlers, historian Thomas Goodrich weaves a spellbinding tale of life and death on the prairie, told in the timeless words of the participants themselves. "Scalp Dance" is a powerful, unforgettable epic that shatters modern myths. Within its pages, the reader will find a truthful account of Indian warfare as it occurred.

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First Sentence
By the spring of 1865, the bloody American Civil War was all but over. Read the first page

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Customer Reviews

18 Reviews

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Average Customer Review

4.4 out of 5 stars (18 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars America's First War on Terror, Jun 9 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Scalp Dance (Paperback)

If you want to understand the dynamics of the plains indian wars, you MUST read this book. Scalp Dance gives you an up close and personal look at the atrocities and danger that frontier people lived with daily. One of my favorite subjects is the Indian Wars (both in the east and west), but anymore it is virtually impossible -- and I mean IMPOSSIBLE -- to find books that aren't extremely PC and insultingly one-sided. This book is the antidote. Before you cast aspersions on the people involved in these conflicts, read this book, and ask yourself, "What would I do in the same situation?"

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4.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyable alternative perspective on this subject..., Jan 6 2004

By

John F. Moore (Albany, New York United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Scalp Dance (Paperback)

As many of the reviews of this book have stated, this book differs from many other accounts of Indian-white warfare on the Great Plains in that it does not start with an agenda which paints the white settlers/soldiers as thieving invaders and the Indians as noble, oppressed victims. What it is is what it claims to be--a scholarly analysis of contemporaneously written accounts of the conflicts which ranged from the Comanche country in Texas to the Sioux plains in the Dakotas and Montana, with a particular emphasis on the Cheyenne tribe which ranged throughout (and regarding Kansas in particular, which State the author appears to be an authority on). However, since it is based upon contemporaneous writing, it largely is the version of white settlers, survivors, soldiers and newspapermen, and the natural reaction after reading it is to see the Indians as bloodthirsty, brutal savages who raped, tortured and killed. This is fine, because they were, to a certain extent. There is no doubt that these things occurred. But if the book fails, it is in not giving the other side of the story (which would be difficult, becuase none of the tribes involved had a written language at the time). However, considering the subject matter, there are more than enough books which detail the white wrongs--broken treaties, outright theft of land, extermination of Buffalo, poor reservations, corrupt Indian agents, punishment of innocent Indians for the acts of warlike tribesmen, etc. Goodrich is clearly not trying to paint the Indians as monsters, but rather is presenting, in highly readable fashion, the written versions of those who were there--which is inevitably the white version, and it details harrowing accounts of Indian torture, rape and murder. The book is excellent and informative, and is highly recommended. Just make sure you read other books on the subject which take a different (some would say "PC") perspective, like Dee Brown's Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, and then come to your own conclusion, which will be, inevitably, that both sides had justification, right or wrong, for the brutalities each committed, and that what ultimately happened was a sad but inevitable result of a clash of cultures.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Best Indian Warfare book on the market, Jun 15 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Scalp Dance: Indian Warfare on the High Plains, 1865-1879 (Hardcover)

Anyone who has bought into the PC rubbish promoting the Indians of the Great Plains as being some sort of "Noble Red Aristocrats" really ought to awaken themselves out of their media induced stupor and read this book post haste! The only thing lacking in this work are details about what the tribes did to one another. That is to say, the butchery, mutilation, torture, and sadism the Indians routinely used on the migrating settlers was the norm for tribe-vs-tribe conflicts long BEFORE White people arrived in the geographic area. Without this important point being raised the book is liable to give the PC flunkies fuel for their ever-growing fire of complaints connected to how accounts of Indian atrocities are slanted and one-sided. The FACT is, the tribes of the plains practiced the same savagry against one another as they did against Euro settlers. It was a matter of routine for them all and their so-called "cultures" were built around destroying others in the most gastly manner possible.
Other than this shortcoming, this book shines over ALL other works targeting the same historic/cultural clash. READ IT!

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought-Provoking
This is a fine and thoughtful book, somewhat out of sync with the silly expugation of Indian war customs that has become common today. Read more

Published on May 10 2003 by Raphael Collin

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating
I have read many books about Indian wars on the plains. None has the same effect, the same riveting quality, that Scalp Dance has. Read more

Published on Jan 20 2003