{"id":2608,"date":"2018-06-03T15:18:15","date_gmt":"2018-06-03T23:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=2608"},"modified":"2018-06-03T15:18:15","modified_gmt":"2018-06-03T23:18:15","slug":"review-the-comanche-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=2608","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Comanche Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don’t know much at all about the history of the American Southwest despite living in the region (broadly construed). I know the basic outline of Northeastern history much better.\u00a0 I have been trying to improve this and when Patrick Wyman’s Tides Of History <\/a>Book Club recommended Pekka Hamalainen’s\u00a0 The Comanche Empire<\/em>, I decided to pick it up.<\/p>\n

Hamalainen sets out to upset readers conception of the Comanches.\u00a0 In my case, that is easy – I don’t know much about them beyond recognizing them as Western Movie villains. My very limited understanding the history of this domain was informed by the conflicts between Spain, Mexico, France, and the US. Those players are here, of course, but most of the traditional narrative only recognizes the Natives as weather conditions.\u00a0 Empire<\/em> makes the situation clearer by animating the Comanches.<\/p>\n

The traditional narrative of the region has gaps that become more visible as one considers them.\u00a0 Some of those gaps include the factors that made Texas ripe for splitting from Spain and Mexico.\u00a0 Why and how is Northern Mexico such easy pickings in the Mexican War?\u00a0 What in the world is the story in New Mexico?\u00a0 The answer to all of those is not “Comanches.”\u00a0 But answers that don’t face the facts about the extent and power of these Natives are confusing and incomplete.\u00a0 Empire<\/em> fills in the negative space in the historical narrative.<\/p>\n

The Comanches are interesting in their own right as well.\u00a0 They are a powerful geopolitical player, as I mentioned above. The group\u00a0 is also interesting in terms of their internal nearly federated government style.\u00a0 Multiple loosely cooperating clans who share tribal customs and values are capable of combining efforts to remake their society and act effectively against technically more advanced states.<\/p>\n

The Empire exists because they can change their way of life to move into the great plains, but they disappear as much because they cannot sustain the new style than because they are defeated in battle.\u00a0 Explosive population growth without carefully husbanding resources – in this case horses and bison – failed catastrophically.\u00a0 This is a cautionary tale worth significant ruminations.<\/p>\n

The Comanches also traded in and supported themselves with slaves.\u00a0 This was certainly a second fuse burning in their society, though the ecological failures seem to have gotten them first.<\/p>\n

Overall Empire<\/em> is an accessible introduction to a fascinating people.<\/p>\n

Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t know much at all about the history of the American Southwest despite living in the region (broadly construed). I know the basic outline of Northeastern history much better.\u00a0 I have been trying to improve this and when Patrick Wyman’s Tides Of History Book Club recommended Pekka Hamalainen’s\u00a0 The Comanche Empire, I decided to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2608"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2614,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608\/revisions\/2614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}