Difficult to endure narrator

The narrator is difficult to endure. The voice cadence is unnatural, inflection of tone also unnatural. Almost robotic. Book however is fascinating.

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84 people found this helpful

Great story in need of better narration

Such a fascinating dive into a distinct part of history. The only critique is it seems the narrator was emotionally disengaged from the book's content, which left more to be desired from such a powerful story.

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74 people found this helpful

Well written and very interesting.

This is a history book, written in story form. I checked a number of statements and accounts of events and they agreed with outside sources. I have no reason to doubt the author but some of the events were completely new to me. This was very well written, especially when considering that many related things were happening and different viewpoints were shaped at the same time in different parts of this vast land. This subject is not a huge hobby or interest for me to follow but I was fully engaged in this book. Highly recommended.

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67 people found this helpful

Pride and shame

Wow, this was such a good book. I laughed, I cried, I cringed. There was good, bad and ugly but it was all real. I don’t think a book has ever given me simultaneous feelings of such pride and shame for history. I really hope someday that Quanah’s home can be restored. If you google it, it’s still there in Oklahoma but is in disrepair.

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65 people found this helpful

A story that needed telling.

In Empire of the Summer Moon, Gwynne details not only what the daily lives were like for the Comanche people, but how their presence and strength hindered America's westward expansion into the great plains. It provides much needed perspective for people who do not understand the intricacies and danger of a life lived in the "wild west".

Hearing about a woman who was abducted by the Comanches and then refused to assimilate back into american culture when "saved" really tells you something about the life on the land that the Comanches had. I learned so much and the time flew by while listening to this book.

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41 people found this helpful

Sweeping, Epic, Thorough, Efforltess Listen

Would you consider the audio edition of Empire of the Summer Moon to be better than the print version?

Listening to the story gives it that around the campfire feel that seems very appropriate for this book.On the other hand, this kind of book has lots of information, and I prefer to have a hardcopy in those cases, so that I can make quick notes and refer back to previous passages.

What did you like best about this story?

I loved that it weaved together a pretty thorough story of the settling of the West, the frontier in Texas, history of firearms, the influence of Spain and Mexico, the Comanche culture, pioneer ignorance and ingenuity, Texas Rangers, and the transition of Quanah into a statesman.

What about David Drummond’s performance did you like?

He's very even! No issues with voice or volume modulation and his voice is very pleasant. He does a minimum interpretation of characters, very few character voices, and that is something I definitely appreciate.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

There's a lot of history here. Better broken off and chewed in pieces.

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37 people found this helpful

A Flawed, Important History: Troublesome Narration

Living on the Llano Estacado, I enjoyed listening to Gwynne's history. It is a narrative largely obscured from the land, save for some historical markers and large arrows that signal where Quannah's band stayed. It becomes important, then, for us to acknowledge who dwelt on the land before cities like Lubbock and Amarillo.

Gwynne does well in setting up the narrative, although there are some potential problems. I appreciated how he did not shy away from the horrors of Comanche (Nʉmʉnʉʉ) and Texas Ranger raids. Writing about the Texans, he uses historical records to show how they viewed indigenous people. While Gwynne does recognize the Nʉmʉnʉʉ's strength in combat and economy (discussing the network of comancheros and horse trades), there were times where his descriptions on the Comanche bands relied too heavily on terms like "savage." It suggests a common narrative for indigenous American tribes: they were doomed to disappear once settlers encroached on their lands. Reading this text alongside additional Comanche accounts and Pekka Hämäläinen's Comanche Empire might be useful to get a broader account of the conflict that drove the Nʉmʉnʉʉ to their reservation.

My chiefest complaint with the audio recording is the performance. The narrator often pronounced Spanish words like Llano Estacado and Blanco Canyon incorrectly. These moments made the narrator sound unprofessional and took me out of the narrative. It also suggests that the production company did not exercise due diligence in researching the correct pronunciation.

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32 people found this helpful

Not actually about the Comanches

This is a great book for people who want to learn about interactions between white settlers and the Comanches *with an emphasis on white settlers.* If you actually want substantive information about the Comanches, their history, their culture, their lives before colonization, don't read this. I learned more about the training regimen and culture of the Texas Rangers than about the Comanches.
The POV of this book is not the Comanches'. A perfect example is that the book talks about the intricate and beautiful moccasin Cynthia Ann Parker (a white Comanche woman) made for her daughter, and then almost immediately says that she was taught sewing when she was captured and kept with white people. Clearly it wasn't white people who taught her to sew, but the book simply cannot fathom that she may have learned this skill exclusively from Native people.
I finished the book hoping and praying for it to get better and match its title, but it never did. There is certainly a lot of interesting history in this book, and some of it is Comache history, but by and large this is a book about white people and how they interacted with the Comanches and not the Comanches themselves. So make your choice whether or not to purchase accordingly.

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28 people found this helpful

Educational

This was a hard lesson on American history. The domination of man over man expressed in horrific ways. I will listen to it again after my feeling stop hurting.

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19 people found this helpful

Very informational but very biased

This is a prime example of how history is taught and told by the conquerors. There are many times I had to ignore that author's racist portrayal about the Native Americans. I would much prefer if the facts were just told and the author didn't make statements saying that the Comanches were much less civilized, etc. There were definitely a lot of atrocities committed by the Comanches, but clearly, nations defend their land and sovereignty in violent ways. War is horrible period. Colonialism breeds war.

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16 people found this helpful