BLOOD AND THUNDER: An Epic of the American West. by Sides, Hampton - (2006)

New York:: Doubleday,, (2006). Ex-library with the usual markings, but overall tight and sturdy in a good dj.. First printing. A book centered on Kit Carsons role in the conquest of the Navajo during and after the Civil War. Carson - the legendary trapper, scout, and soldier who embodies all the contradictions and ambiguities of the American experience in the West. Brave and clever, he 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. His exploits made him a household name when they were written up in pulp novels known as blood-and-thunders, Dust jacket praise from Tony Hillerman who commented that this "fills a gaping hole in our knowledge of American historya vivid account of how The New Men swept away the thriving civilizations of the Native Americans in their conquest of the West. Notes, bibliography, index. xi, 460 pp. Map endpapers.