A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn - the Last Great Battle of the American West |...

A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn - the Last Great Battle of the American West | James Donovan | A remarkable acocomplishment

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A Terrible Glory: ...

	A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn - the Last Great Battle of the American West James Donovan Little, Brown and Company, 2008 - 544 pages average customer review:based on 54 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Finally, a book that does an excellent job of telling this story in a readable format

The Battle of the Little Big Horn appears to be the most written military history single event ever. More than any event of World War II, the Civil War, or any other period of military history. However, most of the books that have been written on this event are either dry or biased or both. There have been a couple of good books on this topic: Robert Utley's book, Cavalier in Buckskin and Son of the Morningstar by Evan
Connell (which is in reality a historical novel). However, this book beats them all, digging through all the boring, recent analysis on the battle, and integrating that with well-written older books to provide an excellent, yes, an excellent history of the Battle of the Little Big Horn, from the troopers perspective and from the Indians perspective integrating both sides into an interesting book. The chapter on the massacre of Custer's battalion is the best - concise and clear based on the best thinking over all the years of studying and re-studying this event. After that, the book goes through what happened afterwards, how the event was communicated, the impact, the early criticisms of Custer, Reno's farce of a trial, and what happened to the major players in this event afterwards: Reno, Benteen, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and the many of the minor players including Custer's wife - Lizzy. If there is one book that you own on the Battle of the Little Big Horn, this is it. I highly recommend this book to any individual interested in this battle.

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A remarkable acocomplishment

A Terrible Glory is a remarkable accomplishment. Donovan writes with a novelist's flair for narrative written in engaging detail, and has dug up an impressive quantity of primary source material. Over 25 years, I've read 15 or 20 books on this battle, including archaeological reports (and I have an academic background and field experience in historical archeology)- and this book stands out as a fine, one-volume summary of the events and personalties involved in this chapter of American history. It is, indeed, the best one-volume account of the Little Bighorn battle, well-suited to fit the needs and interests of general readers. Those with more specialized tastes may take issue with some of Donovan's conclusions and re-creations, but should come away with a deep respect for his efforts and opinions. A Terrible Glory is an outstanding accomplishment, even given the broad field of the extensive literature on the subject. Read it, keeping a finger in the back pages of notes, or you'll miss some interesting details.

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Overall, a well-balanced view

The 2 and 3-star reviewers seem to be firmly anti-Custer and thus try to trash this book. Custer has been ridiculed too much and too often, even in several Hollywood movies, of which "Little Big Man" is one of the worst. But this book is much more balanced in its treatment of Custer, matter-of-factly reporting his activities and movements without trying to lampoon him. Richly deserving criticism, and receiving it here, is Marcus Reno. But the author correctly does this by reporting the facts, not by lampooning him. Benteen was largely a failure too, slow to move when ordered, and ultimately disobeying Custer's final order. Gibbon and Terry had their own shortcomings. There were few heroes in this debacle, certainly none among the commanding officers.
I was most disappointed with the poor maps. I tried to follow the text on the several small maps scattered thruout the book, with less than complete success, but eventually concluded that the maps were so vague because the actual positions cannot be known for certain. The larger maps on the endpapers were too insetted to be of much value.
I was also looking for more discussion of the Indian accounts of the action. What was provided was more sparse than I expected. Also, there was no enumeration of the casualties among the Indians, unless it was hidden somewhere in the extensive notes. I thought that the Notes could have been halved by incorporating many of them into the text. An appendix naming all known casualties on both sides would have been a nice addition. All in all, these are minor criticisms, not enough to prevent me from giving this engrossing book five stars.

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A Great Book--the best overall book on the subject, period, and the best-written

There are those who obsess over the events described in this book, and then there are those whose lives would be absolutely none the worse for having never heard of the Little Bighorn. The great thing about this book is that it appeals to both levels.

As an avid reader on the subject, I found the book to be impressively researched. I am not alone in that opinion. Even Robert Utley, one of the most distinguished writers on the West, has described the research of primary materials as the best he's ever seen.

My girlfriend, hardly a fan of anything military or the old West, casually picked up this book when I'd finished. Three days later she put it down and asked if I had any more just like it. Mind you, her idea of a good read had heretofore been more Reader's Digest than New Yorker.

My point here is that there is fresh material here for readers already informed on the subject, and a great story told with style for those readers who are not. In my opinion, this is simply the best book on the subject. To those other reviewers who relegate the book to the "2 star" basement, I say read it again, this time sober.

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A Terrible Editor too

A well researched historical account dragged down by inadequate editing, writing and even proofreading.

"A Terrible Glory" is full of details about the actions of the participants in the Battle of Little Bighorn, aka "Custer's Last Stand". Despite the wealth of detail, I was almost continually confused about when things were happening. Mr. Donovan seldom mentioned dates and (during the battle) times for events. I also just didn't understand how the 7th Cavalry forces were organized that day; who commanded who. The author usually described what the various companies in the regiment were doing, and that they were undermanned, but I had no real idea how many soldiers were involved at many stages of the story.

Not to give away the main theme but Custer: good, Reno: bad.

As to the editing and proofreading.... One event is said to have occurred on June 31st. A soldier is said to have been nicknamed "Dry Martini" after the cocktail which was invented about 30 years later. And -- this is kind of sad -- Mr Donovan concluded with a whimsical vision of Indian and soldier's ghosts "in a brotherhood that reaches past race and religion and greed." Yep, no one noticed the obvious typo of "greed" instead of "creed". (He should have said "tribe" in the first place.)

I haven't studied this battle at the sub-atomic level like some of the reviewers, but I was disappointed that Mr Donovan's work suffered from editorial carelessness his research did not deserve.

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