In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a Native American empire rose to dominate the fiercely contested lands of the American Southwest, the southern Great Plains, and northern Mexico. This powerful empire, built by the Comanche Indians, eclipsed its various European rivals in military prowess, political prestige, economic power, commercial reach, and cultural influence. Yet, until now, the Comanche empire has gone unrecognized in American history. This compelling and original book uncovers the lost story of the Comanches. It is a story that challenges the idea of indigenous peoples as victims of European expansion and offers a new model for the history of colonial expansion, colonial frontiers, and Native-European relations in North America and elsewhere. Pekka Hämäläinen shows in vivid detail how the Comanches built their unique empire and resisted European colonization, and why they fell to defeat in 1875. With extensive knowledge and deep insight, the author brings into clear relief the Comanches’ remarkable impact on the trajectory of history.
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"Depth and detail of this historical investigation is 1st rate...I plan on reading all this author's books on native history. Narrator did a great job, after listening for nearly 20 hours I will miss her."
— Ted Moores (5 out of 5 stars)
A fascinatingly informative volume.
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Pekka Hämäläinen is the Rhodes Professor of American History at Oxford University and the author of The Comanche Empire, winner of the Bancroft Prize, and Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power.
Carla Mercer-Meyer, a Southern California native, has a strong musical theater background, as she has been performing her entire life. Her credits include a guest appearance on The Morris Taylor Show, and her performances include Into the Woods and You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, as well as many other theatrical productions. An AudioFile Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator, Mercer-Meyer resides in Southern California with her husband and four children. She is an avid audiobook listener and a book fanatic.