Tag: Mountain Men
Blood And Thunder – History of Kit Carson, American Hero
by Oscar on Jun.22, 2009, under Book Reviews
Book Review – Blood And Thunder
So, the first run TV programs have all gone into re-runs, and the summer “Blockbuster” movies have mostly proved to be average at best. Now what do I do for entertainment? Well, for starters I can fall back on older movies that I have not seen because they just didn’t catch my interest the first time around, OR I can review a few books that I have read that I felt were worthwhile.
I have long had an interest in the American West, especially its initial exploration and discovery by the early trappers known as “Mountain Men”, and the first dealings with the people who originally populated those lands, the Native Americans, or “First Nation Peoples”, as many prefer to call them. Most of these men remain anonymous to this day, some never being seen again after leaving civilization, others abandoning the life style after tiring of the danger, the solitude and the harsh existence. A very few gained notoriety for their exploits, leaving their names as places on maps that we use today, but only one man spanned two generations and two eras, helping to usher in the death of the thing he loved most, the American wilderness and the subjugation of a people he came to call his own. That man was Kit Carson.
Who was this man, Kit Carson, and why does he rate a biography? Kit was a misfit in civilized society east of the Mississippi, escaping to “the shining mountains” as a teenager to live the life of a trapper, and the very things that made him unsuitable for civilized society helped him to survive, and thrive, in the hostile environment of the Great Plains and western mountains.
At only five and a half feet tall and about 130 pounds, Kit learned to track, shoot, trap and fight as well as, and better than, many men much larger. And perhaps because of his size Kit learned the skills of negotiation, also learning the languages of several different “Indian” peoples, becoming a trusted friend and mediator between two civilization.
The book, “Blood And Thunder” by author Hampton Sides, deals with the early history of the American southwest, a retelling of the exploits of American pioneer, tracker and mountain man Kit Carson and his dealings with the Navajo Nation, the American military and his own unquenchable yearning to live a life free from the entanglements of civilization.
Along the way author Sides gives interesting characterizations of personalities such as the Navajo leader Narbona, U.S. president James Polk, General James Henry Carleton who pursued a scorched earth policy with the Navajo Nation, and numerous other minor characters. Sides also covers the end of the Civil war in Texas, the preceding war of conquest in Mexico and the taking of California in an effort to explain the American belief in “Manifest Destiny”. And Kit Carson plays a role in just about all of it.
In fact, if any non native born English readers wants to understand the American psyche a little more clearly then this book should go a long way in helping. Much of the attitude in today’s forward looking, and mostly optimistic and opportunistic movers and shakers can be traced to our nation’s founding.
This is no “Cowboys and Indians” type book, nor is it “soon to be made into a major motion picture”, it is a for real history book minus all of the distracting footnotes often found in such texts. But it is NOT without attributions. Sides includes a large bibliography at the end of the book for those who require those types of things.
And at no time does this book feel like a “History” book. You know, the kind you used as a prop for your head while you slept through your high school history class.
This from a Washington Times review:
Although the campaign against the Navajo anchors Blood and Thunder, Sides also details a panoply of events surrounding the Mexican War and its aftermath. These include the taking of California from the Spanish and British, as well as the ill-fated and short-lived Bear Flag Rebellion; the last of the famed rendezvous of the mountain men at Green River, Utah; and the bedraggled Confederate army’s failed attempt to extend the Confederacy into the Southwest. There was a constant undercurrent of outrage and barbarity on all fronts and among all principal parties, Americans, Spanish, Mexican and Indian. Toss in accounts of a number of explorers, fortune-seekers, scoundrels, politicians, inept military adventurers, madmen and fools, and it all begins to sound like a collaboration between Cormac McCarthy and Federico Fellini.
With the feel of a novel, Hampton Sides uses the backdrop of historical events in the late 1800′s while telling the story in an engaging manner, as one reviewer stated “…combining Larry McMurtry’s lyricism with the historian’s attachment to facts”
If this isn’t enough to tickle your curiosity then history is not for you. I thoroughly enjoyed “Blood And Thunder” and will consider trying some of the author’s other works as well.
I rate this book
