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Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West
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List Price: $15.95
Special Price: $10.85
Your Savings: $ 5.10 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Anchor
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 978.02
EAN: 9781400031108
ISBN: 1400031109
Label: Anchor
Manufacturer: Anchor
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 624
Publication Date: 2007-10-09
Publisher: Anchor
Release Date: 2007-10-09
Studio: Anchor
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Editorial Reviews:
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In the summer of 1846, the Army of the West marched through Santa Fe, en route to invade and occupy the Western territories claimed by Mexico. Fueled by the new ideology of “Manifest Destiny,” this land grab would lead to a decades-long battle between the United States and the Navajos, the fiercely resistant rulers of a huge swath of mountainous desert wilderness.
In Blood and Thunder, Hampton Sides gives us a magnificent history of the American conquest of the West. At the center of this sweeping tale is Kit Carson, the trapper, scout, and soldier whose adventures made him a legend. Sides shows us how this illiterate mountain man understood and respected the Western tribes better than any other American, yet willingly followed orders that would ultimately devastate the Navajo nation. Rich in detail and spanning more than three decades, this is an essential addition to our understanding of how the West was really won.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: BRILLIANT!
Comment: Hampton Sides has written one of the finest histories of the American West to date. BLOOD and THUNDER is a fascinating adventure of not only Kit Carson, but the many people he was associated with in his incredible travels throughout America's western expansion. The characters come alive, as Sides describes their personalities and motivations. This is a very equitable presentation of the conquest of a land and it's people, with rationales for the participants behaviors, both good and bad. Hampton Sides wonderful writing style allows the history told in BLOOD and THUNDER to translate into the present day, and helps to explain current challenges to the land and people of the United States of America.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A fresh perspective on the expansion of the American West
Comment: Subtitled "The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West", this 2006 well-documented saga transported me to a time and a place that I've been hearing about all my life. It's all packed into a mere 497 pages and every page unearthed new facts and figures about the history of America from the 1820s to the late 1860s.
The narrative is tied together by following Kit Carson, a frontiersman from the American southwest, a trapper and soldier who was illiterate, but was able to speak five different Indian languages as well as Spanish. I learned a lot from this book, mostly about the people who were involved in what is sometimes called the "manifest destiny" to expand America from ocean to ocean and conquer all peoples who got in their way. Here we meet a cast of familiar characters from President James K. Polk who instigated the Mexican War, to army explorer John Charles Freemont as well as all the army officers and politicians who played a role in changing the landscape of America forever. We also meet the Indians.
The writer brings a critical eye and a deep understanding to the politics of the time which forced the destruction of the various Indian groups. I learned more than I ever thought I would about Indians, especially the Navajos, who fiercely resisted the American expansion but, in the end, became but a shadow of their former selves.
The book is rich in detail, and every page is full of facts. Kit Carson saw himself becoming a legend in his own time. Mostly, this legend was pure fabrication from the pens of flamboyant writers, but his name is forever linked with those turbulent times which saw him eventually becoming an officer for the Union army and leading battles against the Indians who he certainly respected.
The book is interesting and also a little dense for my taste. I found I was forgetting the names of the battles and the officers and the different tribes of Indians as I was reading. It was one of those books that I read all the words but let the details wash over me as I experienced the bigger picture of how the west was won. It was bloody and it wasn't nice. There was cruelty and injustice but that's just the way things were. We can't whitewash the truth of history.
Blood and Thunder gave me a fresh perspective on what really happened all those years ago that formed the America I know and love today. It is not for a book everyone though. I just happen to love history.
Customer Rating:
Summary: History Clear Eyed
Comment: Fascinating. A few flaws. All minor. Some more odd and interesting than others. The past tense of gainsay is gainsaid. It's Sierra Blanca not Sierra Blanco. Sides states that the Navajo had never encountered "white" men. Yet they had been in intimate contact with the Spanish for over two hundred years and many of them spoke Spanish. Freudian slip? He has judge Carlos Beaubien intoning the death sentence for the Taos patriots for treason, "Muerto," dead man, rather than "muerte," death. Presumably, Beaubien, whose son Narciso had been killed in the uprising, spoke Spanish. This is in the tradition of authors like John Nichols who, in Milagro Beanfield War, says that pendejo means "pubic hair," when if he had deigned to use the great resource right outside his doorstep, he would have readily apprehended that in New Mexico, pendejo means "fool." Sides says that the poorest Navajos (as opposed to the more affluent?) were called "ladrones," thieves, but does not explain. Finally, Sides seems unable to sort out the nomenclature for folks of Iberian descent. Sometimes they are "Spanish" buffalo hunters, sometimes "Mexican" trailhands, sometimes "Hispanic" soldiers or "Hispanic" men from the territory, sometimes "New Mexicans."
With all of this, this is still five-star reading. I couldn't put it down. I read it in record time. Sides is remarkably even handed. His research is obviously deep, his presentation captures and holds you. It is obvious that Sides has been to the majority of places he describes. I'm jealous. He has forced me to rethink Kit Carson. Carson's amazing peregrinations and his serendipitous appearance at every important juncture in U.S. western history forces us to again examine the great man theory and the role of luck in the course of human history. What if San Pasquale had gone the other way? What if Armijo had had some huevos and held the pass at Apache Canyon? Could anything have really stemmed the tide, turned aside a powerful nation bent on raping and pillaging a weaker neighbor? What would Mexico be today if it had not been immorally deprived of its northern territories, Texas, New Mexico and California? But this is like urinating into the wind. We cannot, as some would snidely suggest, choose the century or decade in which we want to live. We can, however, insist on our history clear eyed, unadulterated by hype or prejudice. Sides' narration forces us all to reexamine our pet prejudices. I pay him the ultimate compliment. Sides is a historian.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Blood and Thunder
Comment: This is a very well researched history. It portrays an important part of our history and does not gloss over the excesses of the middle 19th century.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good History of the West
Comment: Well done. Shows Kit Carson as an American hero. Book demonstrates why violence was the only recourse in dealing with ignorant, uneducated savages. Highly recommnd book.
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