The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull and the Battle of the Little Big Horn

Description

The Sunday Times top ten bestseller. The ultimate mythic story of the American West- the story of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull's victory and General Custer's famous last stand - featuring remarkable new archival discoveries. This is the archetypal story of the American West. Whether it is cast as a tale of unmatched bravery in the face of impossible odds or of insane arrogance receiving its rightful comeuppance, Custer's Last Stand continues to captivate the imagination. Nathaniel Philbrick brilliantly reconstructs the build-up to the Battle of the Little Big Horn through to the final eruption of violence. Two legendary figures dominate the events- George Armstrong Custer and Sitting Bull. Those involved are brought vividly to life, as well as the history, geography and haunting beauty of the Great Plains. This book provides a thrilling account of what happened there - and why - at the end of June 1876.

Nathaniel Philbrick is an historian and broadcaster whose books include In the Heart of the Sea, which was a Sunday Times bestseller and won America's National Book Award (and is director Ron Howard's major new film), Sea of Glory (winner of the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Naval History Prize), Mayflower, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and the Sunday Times bestselling The Last Stand. He lives on Nantucket Island and is the founding director of the Egan Institute of Maritime Studies and a research fellow at the Nantucket Historical Association.

A mesmerising portrait of two extraordinary individuals and a thrilling blow-by-blow account of a landmark battle, it is a terrific achievement -- Dominic Sandbrook * The Sunday Times * Philbrick recounts this story with the clarity, colour and pace of a first-rate movie, and Jeffrey Ward's superb maps make the twists and turns easy to follow. Custer's Last Stand was America's Isandhlwana, where the shock of defeat was redeemed by the thrill of the tale -- Raymond Seitz * Literary Review * Fine new history...Philbrick has made excellent use of archival resources... and the resulting narrative is unlikely to be bettered. There is much more to savour... it is as brilliant an example of combat reconstruction as one is likely to find in any history of this scope and ambition -- Trevor Royle * Sunday Herald * An absorbing retelling of the greatest Western of all. Philbrick is a stunningly evocative historian. It is a captivating story * The Times * Philbrick writes a lively narrative that brushes away the cobwebs of mythology to reveal the context and realities of Custer's unexpected 1876 defeat at the hands of his Indian enemies under Sitting Bull... compelling * Publishers' Weekly *