From Booklist
This comprehensive history of the Comanche people treats them as an independent power rather than as victims of American westward expansion. And though Hamalainen frames his arguments within scholars’ debates on proper perspectives toward the Comanche, general readers interested in the history of the Southwest will discover his to be a fascinatingly informative volume in its explanatory and narrative modes. Between the Comanche’s initial appearance in Spanish records in 1706 to their final defeat by the U.S. in 1874, Hamalainen traces an ascent in Comanche numbers, wealth, and influence that enabled them to dominate western Texas and New Mexico for decades. Interpreting such Comanche activities as raiding and slaving as distinct instruments of imperialism, Hamalainen credits these practices with endowing the Comanche with their fierce frontier reputation within the extensive Great Plains trading network they operated. A valuable library resource for its subject. --Gilbert Taylor
Review
“The Comanche Empire is a landmark study that will make readers see the history of southwestern America in an entirely new way.”—David J. Weber, author of Bárbaros: Spaniards and Their Savages in the Age of Enlightenment
“This exhilarating book is not just a pleasure to read; important and challenging ideas circulate through it and compel attention. It is a nuanced account of the complex social, cultural, and biological interactions that the acquisition of the horse unleashed in North America, and a brilliant analysis of a Comanche social formation that dominated the Southern Plains. Parts of the book will be controversial, but the book as a whole is a tour de force.”—Richard White, author of The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815
“The Comanche Empire is an impressive achievement. That a major Native power emerged and dominated the interior of the continent compels a re-thinking of well worn narratives about colonial America and westward expansion, about the relative power of European and Native societies, and about the directions of change. The book makes a major contribution to Native American history and challenges our understanding of the ways in which American history unfolded.”—Colin G. Calloway, author of One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West before Lewis and Clark
“Pekka Hämäläinen profoundly alters our understanding of the American Southwest, asserting that Comanche expansion and domination eclipsed European imperialism over the 18th and early 19th centuries. Readers of this ambitious and discerning ethnohistory learn close-up how the Comanches made colonial as well as native communities the building blocks of their own ascendancy. In a counter-narrative to frontier history and a revision of borderlands study, Hämäläinen features the contingency of historical change and the agency of Indian people.”—Daniel H. Usner, Vanderbilt University
"Cutting-edge revisionist western history. . . . Immensely informative, particularly about activities in the eighteenth century."—Larry McMurtry, The New York Review of Books
(Larry McMurtry The New York Review of Books 20090101)"[A] fascinating and richly detailed study."—Si Dunn, Dallas Morning News
(Si Dunn Dallas Morning News 20100101)"The Comanche Empire is a hugely important documentary survey of the Comanche Nation, as known from documentary sources between the late 17th and the late 19th centuries."—Ed Baker, The Austin Chronicle
"A fascinating new book, details [the Comanches] unusual and colorful history. . . . [Hämäläinen] has rescued the Comanches from myth and distortion and given them their due in the sprawling epic that is our American story."—John Sledge, Mobile Press-Register (AL)
“Hämäläinen not only puts Native Americans back into the story but also gives them—particularly the Comanche—recognition as major historical players who shaped events and outcomes.”—Sherry Smith, Southern Methodist University, author of Reimagining Indians: Native Americans Through Anglo Eyes, 1880-1940
"Comanche Empire is an impressive, well-written, and important study that should significantly influence future metanarratives, whether they include all or parts of Texas, the West, the Borderlands, or even general histories of the United States and Mexico."—Ty Cashion, Journal of Military History
(Ty Cashion Journal of Military History )Winner of the 2009 Award of Merit, sponsored by the Philosophical Society of Texas
“Perhaps we can simply stipulate that The Comanche Empire is an exceptional book—in fact, one of the finest pieces of scholarship that I have read in years. . . . Hämäläinen has given us a closely argued, finely wrought, intensely challenging book.”—Joshua Piker, William and Mary Quarterly
"This book deserves all the accolades it has and will receive. It is certain to be on reading lists for years to come."—William J. Bauer, Jr., Journal of World History
(William J. Bauer Jr. Journal of World History )"Argued with a drama befitting the subject, The Comanche Empire is bound to influence thinking about western history considerably."--Daniel J. Gelo
(Daneil J. Gelo Journal of American History )"An important read for any researcher interested in Indigenous North America, the West, or colonization."--James O''Neill Spady, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History
(James O'Neill Spady Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History )"Exhaustively researched and beautifully written, The Comanche Empire is much more than a tribal history of an important plains Indian people. Hamalainen''s bold interpretation that the Comanches created a uniquely "Comanche" empire that challenges and subsequently dominated the southern plains for over a century forces a complete reevaluation of the various storms that brewed in the colonial Southwest."—Thomas A. Britten, The Historian
(Thomas A. Britten The Historian )"Ambitiously revisionist. . . . An important read for any researcher interested in Indigenous North America, the West, or colonization."—James O''Neil Spady, Project Muse
(James O'Neil Spady Project Muse )
