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The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend Audiobook
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Publisher Description
In the bestselling tradition of Empire of the Summer Moon, this is the untold story of Red Cloud, the most powerful Indian commander of the Plains who witnessed the opening of the West.
The great Oglala Sioux chief Red Cloud was the only Plains Indian to defeat the United States Army in a war, forcing the American government to sue for peace in a conflict named for him. At the peak of their chief's powers, the Sioux could claim control of one-fifth of the contiguous United States. But unlike Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, or Geronimo, the fog of history has left Red Cloud strangely obscured. Now, thanks to painstaking research by two award-winning authors, his incredible story can finally be told.
Born in 1821 in what is now Nebraska, Red Cloud grew up an orphan who overcame myriad social disadvantages to advance in Sioux culture. Through fearless raids against neighboring tribes, like the Crow and Pawnee, he acquired a reputation as the best leader of his fellow warriors, catapulting him into the Sioux elite—and preparing him for the epic struggle his nation would face with an expanding United States. Drawing on a wealth of evidence that includes Red Cloud's 134-page autobiography, lost for nearly a hundred years, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin bring their subject to life again in a narrative that climaxes with Red Cloud's War—a conflict whose massacres presaged the Little Bighorn and ensured Red Cloud's place in the pantheon of Native American legends.
A story as big as the West, with portraits of General William Tecumsah Sherman, explorer John Bozeman, mountain man Jim Bridger, Red Cloud prot├®g├® Crazy Horse, and many others, The Heart of Everything That Is not only places you at the center of the conflict over western expansion but finally gives our nation's greatest Indian war leader the modern-day recognition he deserves.
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“Finally we have thefull story of Red Cloud, told without the sentimentality and delusional romancethat too many white historians bring to the American native tribes. The PowderRiver country of the West entrapped two equally objectionable groups—thesoldiers that Washington sent to decimate the tribes, and the tribesthemselves, who had been slaughtering each other for centuries. That stirringbut bloodthirsty era deserves an honest treatment like this.”
— Rinker Buck author of Flight of Passage
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“Histories of the Sioux Wars have too often cast all other warriors into the shadow of Crazy Horse. Drury and Clavin shine welcome light on Red Cloud, a brilliant leader and military strategist whose life was an important part of this brutal and decisive movement in America’s history. This is an absorbing and evocative examination of the endgame in the three-hundred-year war between Native Americans and settlers of European descent.”
— Charles Frazier, National Book Award–winning author of Cold Mountain -
“The word ‘epic’ is overused these days. Not here. This is big, blazing history, writ large on the High Plains. Clavin and Drury handle it beautifully. Through the striking historical figure of Red Cloud, they tell story of the Sioux Nation and of the fight for the American West.”
— S. C. Gwynne, author of Empire of the Summer Moon and Pulitzer Prize finalist -
“Red Cloud is one of the great figures in nineteenth-century America’s tortured relationships with the many peoples who occupied our country before we took it. Finally, there is a portrait worthy of the man, fully drawn and realized, all the complicated undertow acknowledged and embraced.”
— Ken Burns, American director and producer -
“A gripping narrative…This fascinating book is highly recommended to anyone interested in the history of the Old West.”
— Library Journal (starred review) -
“Illuminating…Readers now have access to a much more thorough, comprehensive understanding of the Plains Indians’ brutal and tragically futile efforts to protect their land and way of living from the progress of civilization.”
— Publishers Weekly
Awards
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Selected for the November 2013 Indie Next List
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A 2014 Spur Award Finalist for Best Western Nonfiction Historical
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A New York Times bestseller
The Heart of Everything That Is Listener Reviews
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peter schelin, 7/17/2017
About the Authors
Bob Drury, a Men’s Health contributing editor and chief military correspondent, has been nominated for three National Magazine Awards and a Pulitzer Prize. He has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Liberia, Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and Darfur, among other sites. He is also the author, coauthor, or editor of numerous nonfiction books, including The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of US Marines in Combat, and the recipient of the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation’s 2010 General Wallace M. Greene Jr. Award for nonfiction.
Joe Knezevich is an audiobook narrator and award-winning actor. He earned a BFA in acting from Florida State University and studied in London. In addition to his work on the stage, he has appeared in many roles on the small screen and in film, including in The Change Up, Parental Guidance, 42, The Last of Robin Hood, and Allegiant.
About George Newbern
George Newbern is an Earphones Award–winning narrator and a television and film actor best known for his roles as Brian MacKenzie in Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride Part II, as well as Danny in Friends. As a voice actor, he is notable for his role as Superman on the Cartoon Newtork series Static Shock, Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited. He has guest starred on many television series, including Scandal, The Mentalist, Private Practice, CSI: Miami, and Numb3rs. He holds a BA in theater arts from Northwestern University.