Customer Reviews

Geronimo's Story of His Life

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No greater story can be told about Geromino than one told by the man himself. Not only do we gain insight to this famous figure in history, but we also get an in-depth account of Apache life and philosophy. There are many books that describe the Apache lifestyle, but it is rare to come across a first person account. Learn about Geronimo's ancestry, how he got his name, and the many wars he waged on the Mexicans. Read about life on the reservation and if the U.S. government upheld their end of the bargain. I definitely recommend this book to any lover of Native American history

I really, really enjoyed reading this book. Although I am not particularly fascinated by our aborginal American brethren, I do feel sorry for their plight at the hands of my ancestors and find myself in awe of those such as Geronimo who attempted to fight back against the inexorable tide of foreign inmigration to Indian lands. As the American Indian did not have a written language (excepting the Cherokee, late in their history) it is nigh on impossible to observe the situation between the White man and the Indian from the Indian's perspective. Thus it is almost like manna from heaven that one prescient being, in the form of S.M. Barrett, prevailed upon Geronimo to recount anything at all about his life story. This book is disappointingly short because Barrett approached Geronimo toward the end of his life, and because the Indian chief deigned to tell his story on his own terms, in his own way, and only once each time that he began to speak. Still, what little information Geronimo was willing to impart is vital and spell-binding and utterly fascinating. Interspersed amongst Geronimo's bits and snippets of incidents in his life and descriptions of Apache cosmography and social structure is background information from the author and editor which help to place the story in the context of the White man's historical account of the Apache wars. Obviously, such a short and unstructured narrative is wholly inadequate to illuminate a great man's life, but it still allows one to begin to form an opinion about a man who has by now become a legendary chapter in the story of the conquest of the American West. An especially nice aspect of this book is the dozen or so photographs of Geronimo and members of his extended family.

I own the Kindle edition of this book, and haven't investigated any other version. There is no copyright information in the book. It contains some nearly useless front matter, and then the Geronimo narrative, lifted (apparently) verbatim from his actual autobiography entitled Geronimo: His Own Story: The Autobiography of a Great Patriot Warrior, available in several editions (including Kindle) from Amazon. That book contains over 40 more pages, including some excellent introductory material and a brief history of the era about which Geronimo speaks. I highly recommend that you consider purchasing that book, even though it is quite a bit more expensive.

In addition, the Kindle edition of this book is so poorly scanned that it contains page numbers and other garbage embedded throughout the text, including (apparently) captions for pictures that have been deleted. Obviously, little or no editing was done on the manuscript when it was converted to e-book format.

I returned this book and bought the much better title mentioned above. I have never had a bad experience buying from Amazon.

For those interested in Apache history, this may make a nice read, but most of it amounts to a catalog of battles, which to me, are very uninteresting. Some aspects of the way Geronimo thought comes out, but this was basically a boring, tedious book.

This book is currently out of copyright and should be available for free for the Kindle. Alas the free version is nowhere to be found. You can, however, find the free version on iBooks. Very disappointed in Amazon for allowing people to profit off material whose copyright has expired. Shame. Get your act together, Amazon, before the iPad becomes the number one eReader.