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Summary: William M. Osborn Loves America
Review: A fascinating read about some American history all of us might want to forget. Osborn with incredible insight and detail provides the best account ever written about that period. Osborn loves America enough to examine the good and the bad, I would highly recommend to anyone interested in American History.
Rating:
Summary: My strongest recommendation
Review: An excellent, excellent book describing a side of the American-Indian war that is frequently hinted at but never fully explored. Thorough and well-documented. The author presents a serious account rather than sentimentalizing the facts of our nation's history.
Rating:
Summary: My strongest recommendation
Review: An excellent, excellent book describing a side of the American-Indian war that is frequently hinted at but never fully explored. Thorough and well-documented. The author presents a serious account rather than sentimentalizing the facts of our nation's history.
Rating: 
Summary: Wild Frontier
Review: As a retired high school teacher with an interest in American history,I was attracted to Bill Osborn's THE WILD FRONTIER when I first read the title and saw its cover. Because of its emphasis on atrocities, I felt that it would appeal not only to an adult audience but also to a teenage one. I was not wrong. I found THE WILD FRONTIER well-written and absorbing. I flew through the first few chapters but found the reading personally stressful later on as more and more atrocities were reported. Of course, the cover led me to expect this, but I still found the actual accounts distressing. However, they did help me understand more fully the deep animosity between the early settlers and the Indians. Although I knew that we have not always treated the Indian honorably, Osborn's book also really opened my eyes to the white man's shameful behavior regarding the Indian during the period of the California Gold Rush and the U.S. Government's abysmal handling of Indian Affairs during the past century. Finally, I would recommend THE WILD FRONTIER to any reader interested in U.S. history as well as to any librarian interested in a good reference book suitable for teenagers or adults. I give Mr. Osborn 4 stars on his first book and look forward to reading his second.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely informative and well documented book
Review: Greatly enjoyed reading the book. For someone who's knowledge of American Indians comes mostly from seeing Western movies and reading Cowboy books this book represents a new insight into both the Indian Wars and the settling of the West. l knew Indians committed many atrocities, such as scalping, against Settlers, however, I did not appreciate that these and other atrocities were committed by "both" Indians and Settlers in perhaps equal amounts and in brutality.What is impressive about this book is that Mr. Osborn has done extensive research on this subject and has documented his findings within the book with appropriate references. These historical references make the book believable and well worth buying it and reading it. No one truly interested in learning about American history cannot afford not to read this wonderful book.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely informative and well documented book
Review: Greatly enjoyed reading the book. For someone who's knowledge of American Indians comes mostly from seeing Western movies and reading Cowboy books this book represents a new insight into both the Indian Wars and the settling of the West. l knew Indians committed many atrocities, such as scalping, against Settlers, however, I did not appreciate that these and other atrocities were committed by "both" Indians and Settlers in perhaps equal amounts and in brutality. What is impressive about this book is that Mr. Osborn has done extensive research on this subject and has documented his findings within the book with appropriate references. These historical references make the book believable and well worth buying it and reading it. No one truly interested in learning about American history cannot afford not to read this wonderful book.
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Summary: Scholarly work depicts the Indian wars as they truly were.
Review: I cannot put into words how great a book this is. Through extensive research by way of first hand accounts and reports it tells the true story of what the indian wars were about and in particular what the indians themselves were truly like...in all of their absolute hellish, horrific and barbaric brutality. The book may make your stomach turn at times but you should read it through to the end. The entire situation from both sides is examined to the greatest detail over a span of several hundred years. It's a very shocking book.
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Summary: Telling it like it was
Review: I had a chance to read this book recently. Over the last thirty odd years, since the publication of Dee Brown's BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE, it has been fashionable to depict whites as the villains of the Indian Wars. In point of fact the story is far more complex, with more twists and turns. Indian tribes were at war with one another from before the arrival of the whites and in fact were often allied with whites against other tribes during the course of the 300 odd years of conflict. The Indian Wars were essentially guerrilla wars, and like all such wars evolved into a downward spiral of atrocity and counter-atrocity. You can see similar things happening in contemporary Latin America, where paramilitary forces battle guerrillas in Columbia. The author points out that often the hostilities were not the result of tribes or governments breaking treaties, but rather by individuals beyond the control of same. Indian "tribes" were often loosely controlled groups of culturally similar peoples. Only with the formation of various "Indian Police" on reservations, in the late 1800's was there any real control of individuals to attempt to restrain intertribal warfare, or even conflict between factions of a tribe. The knee-jerk reaction to a group raiding another tribe, or settlers, was to hold the larger "tribe" responsible, and often the resultant conflict generated atrocities by whites. One can see the same thing happening in the Middle-east, as one Palestinian group bombs a bus or nighclub, and the Israeli's retaliate on the Palestinians as a whole. It's a sad commentary on human nature. I would consider this book "Must Reading" for anyone interested in the old West and the Indian wars. I expect some will take this book, and maybe this review, to task. For the record I am a registered Democrat. The author points out how our acceptance of false history or myth has created problems in dealing with the present state of Indian relations. I see how this goes with other areas in the history of both America and the West. The author is a retired attorney and his sources are documented. Neither whites nor Indians come out of his book smelling like a rose. There is enough stupidity to go around, but the author offers a hopeful note at the end. If some of the acts detailed were to happen in the third world, as they still do, we would probably shake our heads. The Indian Wars were part of our evolution from a third world country, not too far distant in our past, to a hopefully more enlightened present and future.
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Summary: Disapointed
Review: I hate to write only criticism, but I was sorely disappointed. This is important history. The title sounds like an effort to sensationalize, but many of the better books I've read have misleading titles, but with today's resources I expected more. I wish it had at least sensationalized. But does the academic, or even the twisted world need another unorganized list and tally of the undocumented atrocities of U.S. History, that at this point are tasteless, if not politically and historically incorrect, and no longer even gruesome? The effort to create a large section of chapter notes appears to add little to its historic accuracy. Much of our sensationalized, written history in these times, has been in the nature of "pulp". There has often been little distinction between fact and fiction, and the fact was often garnished to the point of fiction, for money, fame, book sales, or simply a better story to tell around the campfire. This in my opinion, is hard to discern from a list of pulp. We certainly could use a more discerning analysis, a better and truthful rendition of our forefathers and the native Americans, or an attempt to divide fact from fiction, even a whopping tall tale, or an orderly listing so it can be used to better analyze, but this, it appears was a list of messed up note cards, typed in the night before the printers deadline, with little purpose. There are too many books like it, and it contributes little new that I could see. Maybe some academic deeply involved in this subject, or someone who likes to read gruesome statistics can see more, but I didn't.
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Summary: A look at the brutal underbelly of the Indian Wars
Review: This book details the long list of savagery that was committed in the long-running Indian War from the time of the first European settlement in North America to the closing the frontier in the late 1800's. No side emerges with completely clean hands for there is plenety of barbaric behavior to go around from Europeans burning alive Indians in a house to Mohawks slowly burning and torturing to death two teenaged female colonists. Everything (especially the demise of a colonist captured by the Shawnee) is described in grisly detail, and it is enough to destroy your faith in all humanity. There is no room here for "Dances With Wolves" or any sentiment like it. It should be required reading for those interested in the Indian Wars.
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