The Indians Won [Import] [Hardcover]

Martin Cruz Smith (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Severn House; New Ed edition (1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0727808095
• ISBN-13: 978-0727808097
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,473,804 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Martin Cruz-Smith's novels include Stalin's Ghost, Gorky Park, Rose, December 6, Polar Star and Stallion Gate. A two-time winner of the Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers and a recipient of Britain's Golden Dagger Award, he lives in California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Indians won by Cruz, April 4, 2000

By 

Jim Selgrath (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Indians Won (Paperback)

I have not read this book for years, but while attemtping to find a book to have high school students read I thought of this one. It is an amazing stretch in alternative history, where a single event can be changed and the resultant reflection on society mapped. Briefly, after Custer was defeated at Little Big Horn, the Indian tribes stayed together to defeat General Crook and develop an Indian nation in the middle of the present US. This book is excellent for the manner in which it presents logical progressions and conclusions. Besides, the book is a very good read.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A novel both believable and inspirational, September 18, 2006

By 

OAKSHAMAN "oakshaman" (Algoma, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Indians Won (Paperback)

I almost didn't read this book because I thought that the premise was too unbelievable. I thought that any story of the American Indian tribes building a self-sustaining independent nation after the Battle of the Little Big Horn must be laughingly unrealistic and simplistic. I could not have been more wrong. This story is almost too believable and packed with plausible, realistic detail. It could have worked. Hell, you want it to have worked for they build a better sort of nation.

What if the Lakota and Cheyenne (Tsistsitas) had not broken up into traditional hunting bands that winter? What if a shadowy group of European investors who were resentful of rising U.S. influence had supplied weapons, canned meat, and blankets to keep them together? After all, the logistical mechanism already existed- the Service Canadien (Metis.) There were huge numbers of Winchester model '73's available on the world market (as demonstrated by their use in Turkey, India, and China.)

Then what if an appeal had gone out to all the tribes- North, South, East, and West? It is pointed out that the tribes had come together before under Metacomet, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Blackhawk, Osceola... What if Wovoka had come forward with his great vision at the same time. Finally, what if the Mormon Legion had signed on?

Each chapter is split between happenings after 1876 that lead to the founding of an Indian nation on the Great Plains, and the culmination of that nation's dealings with the United States government in 1970. I'm sure that back then when the book was written it was considered absurd that a smaller nation could develop its own fission weapons- but in 2006 this has been proven all too plausible.