Non-fiction title covering General George Armstrong Custer and the Hunkpapa Lakota leader, Sitting Bull against the backdrop of the Battle of Little Bighorn-- With an even-handed approach to both leaders, the author takes a new look at the iconic battle waged in Montana. Philbrick attempts to mitigate both the hagiography and the propaganda surrounding Custer & Sitting Bull respectively and; to reconstruct the motivations and movements of the battle about which there is a lot still unknown. Listening to this in audio does a disservice to the work: The lack of having corresponding maps at hand is keenly felt and; the narrator barely survives criticism in his voicing of Native American people. ( )

I was initially a little reluctant to pick this book up, since we've all read the story of Custer's Last Stand, both the old version which portrays him as the iconic American hero, as well as the version which shows him as an egotistical glory-seeker who foolishly led his troops to their deaths. But there's always more to the story, and Philbrick is the type of author who seems to have an ability to dig into historical archives and bring out little known facts, making you feel like there's much more to the story than you'd ever considered before. There was a lot more to the story than I'd been exposed to before, and was glad I finally read the book. ( )

I am not really sure how I feel about this book. If you like to read about military strategy and the minutia of battle then you will like to read this. I was put off by it but fortunately it was just a small part of the book. So much of it was leading up the the battle, outlining the foibles of the major characters. Well researched and using voices of both native and white combatants it gives you a feeling for both sides. I was happy to see that it didn't portray Custer as the hero everyone believed at the time. Surprisingly it didn't try to give a blow by blow of Custer's actual fighting and I appreciated that. ( )

I really enjoyed Philbrick's previous book In the Heart of the Sea a while back, so I added this to my to-read pile. In it he details, with as much accuracy as can be discerned nearly 150 years later, the events and decisions (and egos!) leading up to The Battle of the Little Bighorn.

The logistics of just how the hostility went down were interesting and educational. However, I had read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee a number of years back, and therefore couldn't help but bring to this reading experience a cloud of sadness, hopelessness and anger. While I don't remember the specifics regarding what I may have learned about Custer as part of our public school history curriculum, his cultural legacy as a result of his involvement in Little Bighorn certainly feels like that of a fallen hero. And like so many near-legendary figures whose deeds have become larger than life, let's just say that the real Custer isn't so deserving of anyone's adulation. ( )

Philbrick is an excellent writer. He presents a balanced and very readable narrative of the famous battle, as well as its aftermath. ( )