Custerology: The Enduring Legacy of the Indian Wars and George Armstrong Custer

Custerology: The Enduring Legacy of the Indian Wars and George Armstrong Custer | Michael A. Elliott | Worthwhile

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Custerology: The E...

	Custerology: The Enduring Legacy of the Indian Wars and George Armstrong Custer Michael A. Elliott University Of Chicago Press, 2007 - 344 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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On a hot summer day in 1876, George Armstrong Custer led the Seventh Cavalry to the most famous defeat in U.S. military history. Outnumbered and exhausted, the Seventh Cavalry lost more than half of its 400 men, and every soldier under Custer?s direct command was killed.
It?s easy to understand why this tremendous defeat shocked the American public at the time. But with Custerology, Michael A. Elliott tackles the far more complicated question of why the battle still haunts the American imagination today. Weaving vivid historical accounts of Custer at Little Bighorn with contemporary commemorations that range from battle reenactments to the unfinished Crazy Horse memorial, Elliott reveals a Custer and a West whose legacies are still vigorously contested. He takes readers to each of the important places of Custer?s life, from his Civil War home in Michigan to the site of his famous demise, and introduces us to Native American activists, Park Service rangers, and devoted history buffs along the way. Elliott shows how Custer and the Indian Wars continue to be both a powerful symbol of America?s bloody past and a crucial key to understanding the nation?s multicultural present.

?[Elliott] is an approachable guide as he takes readers to battlefields where Custer fought American Indians . . . to the Michigan town of Monroe that Custer called home after he moved there at age 10 . . . to the Black Hills of South Dakota where Custer led an expedition that gave birth to a gold rush."?Steve Weinberg, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

?By ?Custerology,? Elliott means the historical interpretation and commemoration of Custer and the Indian Wars in which he fought not only by those who honor Custer but by those who celebrate the Native American resistance that defeated him. The purpose of this book is to show how Custer and the Little Bighorn can be and have been commemorated for such contradictory purposes.??Library Journal ?Michael Elliott?s Custerology is vivid, trenchant, engrossing, and important. The American soldier George Armstrong Custer has been the subject of very nearly incessant debate for almost a century and a half, and the debate is multicultural, multinational, and multimedia. Mr. Elliott's book provides by far the best overview, and no one interested in the long-haired soldier whom the Indians called Son of the Morning Star can afford to miss it.??Larry McMurtry

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Why History Matters

I completely disagree with the other review. I got a copy of this book last weekend and couldn't stop reading. Elliott has vivid descriptions of people who keep the Custer story alive today -- like the reenactor who lives in his house or the Indians who hold their own battle reenactment in Montana or the priest who fills his house with Custer books. This book is less about Custer or the Little Bighorn than those people. I've always been curious about those people who go out to Montana every year, and so I was really glad to read this. It's true that Elliott has his own stick on the Indian Wars, but that's OK, he's entitled to it, especially since he does such a good job of letting other people have their say. One of the reviewers on the back calls the book "fair-minded" and I kept thinking that was a good phrase when I was reading it. I have lots of other books that tell me how wonderful Custer's Last Stand is or who try to figure out the x's and o's of the battle, but this one is different, because it's about why history matters so much. In fact, even if you don't know a lot about Custer or the Little Bighorn, this book is worth reading, and it includes enough of that history that you can follow it. This is a book about why people feel passion about history.

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Worthwhile

It is unfortunate that one reviewer here rated this new book as worthy of only a single star, because, having just read it, I think that it is definitely worthwhile. Not being divine and possessing the ability to judge "the thoughts and intentions of the heart", why the other reviewer scored Mr. Elliott's work so low is beyond my finite, mortal comprehension. Perhaps this book was not what they were expecting. Or perhaps this person was just having a "bad day". Or, I might speculate that maybe Mr. Elliott's (who is an associate professor) semi-academic tone and occasional "punch-pulling" was a "turn-off". But, maybe -- just maybe -- it was something else. Whoever elects to read this book needs to come with an open mind and a sincere willingness to be honest with themselves. Beyond that, they need to possess a well-developed tolerance for plenty of ambiguity, paradox, and irony.

Now, yes, "Custerology" respectfully presents a fair amount of accurate history about General Custer and his military adventures. And, for the record, the author does not indulge in "knocking" or disparaging Custer. But further, and most importantly for his purposes, he also does an admirable job of surveying and assessing the collaberative, multivariate, and far-flung "commemorative landscape" of "Custerology", and presents a wide variety of views from many diverse real-life contemporary characters (from various ethnic, educational, and generational backgrounds) regarding Custer and the meaning of his place in America's historical development. Elliot, true to his university training, seems to try very hard to be scrupulously objective, equitable, and to let everyone have their say.

But, primarily, I think that an open-minded perusal of Elliot's book requires a person to take a long, honest look at themselves in the mirror. Any prospective reader must be prepared to do so, and I know that some may not be. But if they have courage for candid self-assessment when they "look in the mirror", they, being merely human, will likely detect just under the sunny surface an irrational constellation of striving emotions, various logical inconsistencies, and some level of denial, regardless of their position or stance on American history, the Indian Wars era, or the likes of Custer. I know that I found myself regularly doing this while reading this book and, to tell the truth, I wasn't always pleased with the various inconsistencies that I beheld. However, it seems that some introspection is unavoidable if the reader desires any genuine longer term foundation for self-respect, which, as someone once pointed out, must ultimately be grounded in self-knowledge ("awareness"), though such may be initially painful to acquire.

Now, I've read scores of books about the Custer fight and the Indian Wars era over the years, and I suppose that I have been something of a "Custerphile" ever since I was just a boy who liked to "play cavalry and Indians" with my little friends in the back yard. And, as a result of multitudinous, eye-wearying studies prosecuted during my adulthood, I long ago concluded to my own satisfaction that Custer was indeed a bold, courageous, highly competent leader of cavalry and a bona fide warrier-hero -- not some inane, glory-seeking, hate-mongering, "ethnic-cleansing", mad dog buffoon without enough sense to come out of the noonday sun, as some have tried to depict him. And, yes. I resent the way that his reputation has been sullied and tainted in the popular (read "generally uninformed and self-complaisantly ignorant") view.

But, be that as it may, as I read Elliot's book, I found myself periodically flipping the pages to contemplate the famous cover photo of my "hero" in full Civil War regalia. When I did, I found myself struggling with some "mixed emotions" (as an aside, I heard an old wit once define "mixed emotions" as what you might feel when your teenage daughter has been out missing all night and comes home with a Gideon Bible tucked under her arm!) and feeling rather discomfited: on the one hand, when I pondered Custer's photographic image, I was gloriously stirred with a pronounced sense of romantic idealism and vivifying fascination, but, on the other hand, I was simultaneously confused and deeply saddened/upset by thoughts of the role he and those of his profession played in the unfolding of avaricious Manifest Destiny (which, by the way, still seems to be proceeding apace, even in this day and age -- consider "globalization" and, of course, space, "the final frontier") and the terrible, phenomenally unethical emaciation, despoilation, confinement, and eradication of Native American populations. Now, like I suppose some others do, I can readily "excuse" Custer by reminding myself that he was just loyally following orders and that he was no "armchair hypocrite" -- indeed, he bravely made the ultimate sacrifice (like some kind of "crucifixtion"!). But still...

Well, I could go on and on, but all I really want to be sure to do here is to warn prospective readers regarding this book: if you elect to have a go at this work, which I recommend, be advised that, unless you are irretrievably ensconced in the gloom of hard-hearted denial, you will likely experience some discomfort and some qualms. If you don't, I will have to really wonder about you!

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Starts off very promising....

So far I have only read the 18 page introduction. Based on that I find the topic to be very original and the book looks promising. This is not a study of the battle of the LBH, but more a study of the people who study Custer, his times, and his last battle. I will complete this review when I finish the book, which I'm about to pick up again right now.

12/19/07
Having finished the book yesterday I'd like to follow up on my original brief comment. Certainly the book deserves 4 stars. I especially enjoyed learning more about the annual LBH reenactments (however, I do wish that he would have asked Joseph Medicine Crow what he thinks of the Real Bird reenactment). There's also lots of interesting people to meet and learn about within its pages. I didnt always agree with all of Mr. Elliott's conclusions, but at the very least there is lots to think about within this book. Definitely worth your time if your interest in Custer goes beyond troop movements at the Little Big Horn.

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