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    Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West
    Unavailable
    Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West
    Unavailable
    Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West
    Audiobook (abridged)6 hours

    Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West

    Written by Hampton Sides

    Narrated by Don Leslie

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    In the fall of 1846 the venerable Navajo warrior Narbona, greatest of his people's chieftains, looked down upon the small town of Santa Fe, the stronghold of the Mexican settlers he had been fighting his whole long life. He had come to see if the rumors were true-if an army of blue-suited soldiers had swept in from the East and utterly defeated his ancestral enemies. As Narbona gazed down on the battlements and cannons of a mighty fort the invaders had built, he realized his foes had been vanquished-but what did the arrival of these "New Men" portend for the Navajo?

    Narbona could not have known that "The Army of the West," in the midst of the longest march in American military history, was merely the vanguard of an inexorable tide fueled by a self-righteous ideology now known as "Manifest Destiny." For twenty years the Navajo, elusive lords of a huge swath of mountainous desert and pasturelands, would ferociously resist the flood of soldiers and settlers who wished to change their ancient way of life or destroy them.

    Hampton Sides's extraordinary book brings the history of the American conquest of the West to ringing life. It is a tale with many heroes and villains, but as is found in the best history, the same person might be both. At the center of it all stands the remarkable figure of Kit Carson-the legendary trapper, scout, and soldier who embodies all the contradictions and ambiguities of the American experience in the West. Brave and clever, beloved by his contemporaries, Carson was an illiterate mountain man who twice married Indian women and understood and respected the tribes better than any other American alive. Yet he was also a cold-blooded killer who willingly followed orders tantamount to massacre. Carson's almost unimaginable exploits made him a household name when they were written up in pulp novels known as "blood-and-thunders," but now that name is a bitter curse for contemporary Navajo, who cannot forget his role in the travails of their ancestors.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateOct 3, 2006
    ISBN9780553756821
    Unavailable
    Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West
    Author

    Hampton Sides

    Narrative historian Hampton Sides is the New York Times bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers, Blood and Thunder, Hellhound on His Trail, In the Kingdom of Ice, and On Desperate Ground. He is a contributing editor to Outside magazine and a frequent contributor to National Geographic and other publications. His work has been collected in numerous anthologies, and he is a two-time finalist for the National Magazine Award for feature writing. Hellhound on His Trail, about the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. and the hunt for his killer, was the basis for the acclaimed PBS documentary Roads to Memphis. Sides lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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    Reviews for Blood and Thunder

    4/5

    309 ratings27 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Excellent book in all respects. Well-written, researched, w/ great source info. Learned a lot from this book....and I got it signed in Pecos by the author!
    • 4/5
      This is a very well researched history of the American Southwest in the mid 19th century, focusing primarily on conflict between the Mexicans, Americans, and the native Americans. The central figure is "Kit" Carson. He is portrayed as a simple man of extraordinary skill that was thrust into an amazing life of involvement in many key aspects of the history of the region. Carson is also shown to have been a very complex individual capable of extreme violence even sadism while maintaining respect and admiration for his "opponents". To me, the book does not portray him as a hero - rather as an important cog in the American expansionist "machine" that ultimately almost exterminated the Native Americans. By the end of his life he seemed to understand the impact of his life and actions on the tribes - with some regret. Unfortunately, too little - too late.
    • 5/5
      Author Hamption Sides does his research and weaves together a gripping saga of the American Southwest and the major characters who shaped its history.
    • 3/5
      Great info on Navajo indians, Kit Carson and New Mexico. I don't like to notice the trouble the author had putting a book together while I am reading it.
    • 4/5
      The tale of Kit Carson and the storied history of the Navajo are artfully woven together in this glorious and bloody documentation of America's westward expansion. This book is easy to read and fascinating in its horror, like a really depressing car wreck that ends in a massacre.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this history read and found it a page turner, but doubt the sourcing and veracity of most of what's contained within it. The text contains few indicators for source and the descriptions of people, places, and events favor a novel. It was a good holiday week read, but not one that I'll re-read.
    • 5/5
      I never knew about the rich history New Mexico has! Absolutely amazing book and an elegantly narrated audiobook. Wow!!
    • 4/5
      Lots of adventure stories from the 1840s-1860s mostly in New Mexico. Kit Carson is the protagonist but there are many many others, if you can keep track. Gives due attention to Indian points of view, as well as Spanish and Mexican. There's a sense of rapid change, one period ending and another beginning. Ultimately a very sad story, and one that didn't have to be. Compare in Asia where the Soviets destroyed the nomadic horse people of Kazakhstan but in Mongolia they still exist without interruption. The book is wide ranging and a greatest hits tamed into a narrative.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book. It made me want to drive out into the desert and enjoy some solitude so I could read straight through to the end in a few of the places the book was set.
    • 4/5
      A fact filled history of the American conquest of the WestKit Carson is a focal point from his youth to his death.Excellent insight into Indian tribes of the west and early hispanic settlers .4 star
    • 5/5
      This a history book that reads like a novel. Sides does a good job of introducing the reader to Kit Carson and the American west.
    • 5/5
      A terrific book. The topic is the clash between Anglo and Indian cultures (primarily Navaho) in the SW United States in the mid-19th century. Also important to the narrative is the story of Kit Carson, who turns out to be quite an interesting guy. Sides has a knack of bringing the history to life by adding novelistic touches (e.g., "The horse snorted as they followed the trail under a brilliant cerulean sky.") I have no idea how Sides knew what the horse did or what color the sky was on that particular day, but these little flourishes pull one into the story and keep one turning the pages.
    • 4/5
      22. Blood and Thunder : An Epic of the American West (Audio) 
by Hampton Sides, read by Don Leslie (2006, 624 pages in paper format, Listened Apr 1-19)An excellent work of history, with a structure that gives it something of an accumulative affect. The first several chapters are not that striking and left me wondering where this was going and what the subtitle, "An Epic of the American West" meant, and why the book was spending so much time with Kit Carson and so little time with all the other stuff going on in the "American west" at that time.The book is about Kit Carson, and also everything happening around him, especially in New Mexico, including fascinating and rewarding extensive sections on the Navajos. Carson's life covers several eras in the rapidly changing 19th-century Spanish-to-Mexican-to-American (as in USA) West. Carson was mountain man, and like them all, he had outlandish traits. But Carson out-lived the mountain man era; yet, unlike all those other characters, Carson's traits translated very well into the what was valuable on the US frontier. The brutal killer and survivor had some strong moral aspects to him, along with extensive survival and tracking skills, intimate knowledge of several native cultures and languages, working knowledge of Spanish and French, an always on edge always productive nature and an almost always shockingly reasonable, even under fire, pain and stress, mind. Carson also could not read or write. He stumbled into a becoming John C. Freemont's guide in all his successful western exploration trips - and really Freemont was completely dependent on Carson and maybe they should have been known as Carson trips. But Freemont's accounts are what first made Carson famous. After Freemont, Carson stumbled into becoming part of the US military, as guide through the New Mexico/Arizona/California desert during the Mexican America war, leading Spanish-speaking troops on the strange far western front during the Civil War, and finally as the main (but reluctant) man in taking down the Navajo Indians.And this is where the book gets so interesting. I had no idea the Navajo were so brutal or so unstoppable. The Spanish towns existed barely, cowering in fear and at the mercy of the Navajos for literally centuries. Losing people and stock and horses was the norm, and so was owning Navajo slaves, a policy which outlived the Civil War. But, wow, what wonderful brutes these Navajos were, ruling the desert, keeping everyone out of their territory, maintaining a unique native culture unlike any around them and maintaining a language shared only by native tribes in far northern Canada (and the Navajos have a mythology of moving south). I say brutes, because that is the only way to characterize the Navajo warriors, whose life was one of raiding and killing. But that was only a small part of their culture. Anyway, they are far more interesting than Carson, even as his best, and, of course, they are tragic. Like all tribes, the Navajos, dominating their world c.1800, were dying on reservations by about 1870. Recommended for anyone with Native American interests, or wanting to better understand the history of New Mexico.
    • 5/5
      This is a great book about the American Southwest and Kit Carson by the author of 'Ghost Soldiers' which I really should review here someday. Blood and Thunder is an exciting read, thoroughly researched and very absorbing. Some of the connections are startling, even if already well known, like that Carson had much to do with the annexation of California to the U.S. Others are simply startling, like the sidelight of Carson's indirect connection to the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
      Much of the book concerns the Navajos and the way the United States interacted with them--makes me read Tony Hillerman's mysteries in a whole new light.
    • 3/5
      Really interesting but mis-named. Should be "Kit Carson's role in the western US expansion". I love reading about Kit Carson but he wasn't the ONLY actor in the west and I was disappointed there wasn't much else. I kinda thought before reading that this book was suppose to be more general in regards to western expansion - maybe I just misread the synopsis. Anyway, it's *mostly* about Kit Carson and some of the people who figured in along side of him.
    • 4/5
      Well written and well researched biography of Kit Carson, juxtaposed against the Navaho story with the coming of Manifest Destiny Americans in the wake of the Mexican War. Reads fast.One problem. Sides, like all late 20th century authors and beyond, suffers from historical guilt and seems to place all evil squarely on the white side of the conflict and gloss over or justify any actions by the Navaho nation to big to be ignored. I think a more balanced approach would have served better. In a war that was cruel on both sides and where neither would compromise if it could be avoided. The Americans were more numerous, technologically advanced and better organized, so they won.
    • 4/5
      The true story of Kit Carson, and how the US really 'won' the west.
    • 4/5
      Hampton Sides' command of narrative prose makes his exhaustive research accessible and enjoyable. Carson was a hard man to characterize: a lover and admirer of Native Amereicans responsible for the deaths of thousands of Native Americans. Sides does a creditable job of making a life-size story out of a larger-than-life figure in the American West.
    • 4/5
      This is a tale woven around a biography of Kit Carson, the Mexican-American War, the settlement of California, the ignominious defeat of the Navajo Nation, and the conquest of the American West. The complexity of the central characters and the messy realities of their era make for a fantastically interesting read.
    • 4/5
      Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of this book is how it covers such a vast amount of historical (and geographic) terrain so quickly and with such unencumbered ease. In a tale woven around a biography of Kit Carson, Hampton Sides accounts for the Mexican-American War, the settlement of California, the ignominious defeat of the Navajo Nation, and (as the subtitle states) the conquest of the American West. Thankfully, the story needs no sanctimonious moralizing or politically motivated revisionism to be riveting in its own right; the complexity of the central characters and the messy realities of their era make for a fantastically interesting read.
    • 5/5
      Marvelous account of the American West – centered on Kit Carson –fom his expeditions with Fremont to his last years rounding up theNavajos and then regretting it.
    • 2/5
      I started this book and didn't finish it....couldn't hold my interest. I don't know if it was because I didn't like the writing style or that it just seemed like another old rehash of the history of the American West aka Kit Carson =hero, Native Americans=villians. I was looking forward to a new perspective, interpretation but alas didn't find one here.
    • 5/5
      I grew up in the American West and read about Kit Carson as a boy. But then mostly forgot about him. As this wonderful book by Hampton Sides makes clear, that was a terrible mistake, because Carson is a fascinating and complex person. Greatly admired and respected by Hispanics, Indians, and Americans alike, he was a fierce Indian fighter and loyal soldier (perhaps his most damning characteristic). He had a knack for turning up in the most interesting places at the most interesting times in Western history. Reading this book almost makes another trip to Indian Country this summer mandatory, as I believe I will see it this time through different, and maybe more understanding, eyes.
    • 4/5
      A strong history, balancing critical and sympathetic viewpoints of Kit Carson and the American settlement of the southwest. Carson comes out a bit heroic, while Sides tends to cast aspersion on supporting characters more generously. In the end, an educating, entertaining back-story of the human history of the American southwest. Especially recommended for its good coverage of the Navajos' Long Walk in the 1860s, as well as Kearny and his Western Army's march to California.
    • 4/5
      Another one of our purchases during our Santa Fe trip.Blood and Thunder tells the story of Manifest Destiny and the expansion of the United States using Kit Carson as its fulcrum. Sides follows Carson from his birthplace in Kentucky to his childhood home in Missouri and then, finally in his myriad, fascinating journeys around the West as Carson, sometimes unwittingly, serves as one of the key architects of Westward Expansion.A master storyteller telling an epic story, Sides enthralls the reader by weaving a complex tapestry filled with illuminating detail. Sides never takes the easy way out of making any of the players one dimensional. There are no absolute villains or no heroes, although there is plenty of villainy and heroics.
    • 5/5
      Excellent narrative - especially if you love the history and landscape of the Southwest. Incredibly even-handed treatment of the clash between American "Manifest Destiny" and the Western Native American tribes, as told through the individuals who lived it - Kit Carson, the Navajo Narbona, John Fremont, Manuelito, etc. Meticulous research, great story.
    • 5/5
      Review by JAB:Hampton Sides, the author of Ghost Soldiers, has written another real life page turner. The story follows the United States as it pursues Manifest Destiny through conquest of northern Mexico, today's California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Most of the action takes place in New Mexico, starting with John C. Fremont's exploratory trip from Santa Fe to California, guided by the soon to become legendary Kit Carson. Fremont's yellow prose account of the trip stimulated much interest in the territory as well as in Carson. Presently President James K. Polk provoked the Mexican war, and the USA added the whole southwest to its territory. The Catholic New Mexicans and the Indians still had to be assimilated, which occurred in due course with the help of the cavalry. The New Mexicans proved to be easier to assimilate. The Indians, especially the Navajo, didn't like submission to the government in Washington. The Navajo saga is a sad one. They had been in a kind of cold war with the Hispanics of New Mexico, raiding each other's live stock and stealing children for about 2 centuries before the Americans came. To win the loyalty of the Hispanics [and maybe find gold], the U.S. Army waged a war of extermination against the Navajo until they finally submitted and made the "long walk" to a reservation south of their traditional lands. Kit Carson plays a significant part in most of the major events of the period. Although illiterate, he was uniformly admired by both Indians and Whites for his courage, honesty, fair dealing [except when at war], and resourcefulness. His final two adventures were leading a regiment in the American Civil War and leading the cavalry against the Navajo. An interesting read for us because of all the quality time we have spent in northern New Mexico and Arizona.(JAB)Review by JAF:This "epic of the American West" (as the book is aptly subtitled) is mostly the biography of Kit Carson, with a bit of the genocide of Native Americans on the side. It is a tale of bravery and pain. The author summarizes the effects of "Manifest Destiny" at the onset of his story:"The trappers murdered Indians in countless kill-or-be-killed scenarios, and some made a practice of hammering brass tacks into the stocks of their rifles for every native dispatched. But their greater slaughter was unwitting: As the forerunners of Western civilization, creeping up the river valleys and across the mountain passes, the trappers brought smallpox and typhoid, they brought guns and whiskey and venereal disease, they brought the puzzlement of money and the gleam of steel."An interesting aside in the book calls attention to the underappreciated presidency of James K. Polk. The author asserts that "Despite his insufferable personality, he [Polk] was possibly the most effective president in American history - and likely the least corrupt. He outmaneuvered his critics. He established an independent treasury. He confronted the British and conquered Mexico. He seized the western third of the North American continent. By the time he left office, the American land mass would increase by 522 million acres. Four years was all he needed."Sides writes that there was a great deal of pressure for the Native Americans to be herded into reservations. Some acted from racism and greed, but some, like Kit Carson, wanted to preserve and protect them from white settlers. There were some horrible massacres, and some insensitive efforts at relocation. (The effort to turn the Indians into farmers at Bosque Redondo was more than insenstive and resulted in three thousand Navajo deaths.) Carson was enlisted in a slash and burn strategy to starve the Native Americans into submission. He was appalled, however, at the techniques of some of the soldiers.The Navajos were eventually beaten, and driven to sign treaties they didn't understand so they could survive on land that was not their own. But "progress" was inexorable, and the western lands that once held the promise of fur and gold, are, ironically, now full of fur and gold. And golf and country clubs. And Native Americans, on reservations, suffering from diabetes, poverty, short life spans, unemployment, and despair. (JAF)