In this excellent book on Wounded Knee, former National Park Service historian Greene takes an unbiased approach, and is reluctant to place blame for the events of December 29, 1890.  Before covering the awful actions of that day, he carefully sets the scene, including the misunderstandings surrounding the Ghost Dance.  He also establishes the mindset of government officials, army commanders, and especially the Indians, who would suffer such devastating losses.  Greene asks important questions: How large a role did the killing of Sitting Bull play in later events? Was it incompetence on the part of Colonel James Forsyth that led to soldiers' deaths by friendly fire? Was Wounded Knee revenge for the Seventh Cavalry's defeat at the Little Bighorn?  The book is heavily endnoted and includes a number of informative appendixes.  The narrative does drag a little in places due to a great deal of detail concerning troop movements.  Much has been written about the confrontation at Wounded Knee, but with its meticulous research, evenhanded coverage, and masterful prose, Greene's book ranks among the best and most complete accounts of this American tragedy.  For all libraries, and a required purchase for those on the Great Plains. Summing Up: Essential. All public and academic levels/libraries.

--J. A. Boughter, University of Nebraska at Omaha

Judith Ann Boughter

University of Nebraska at Omaha

http://dx.doi.org/10.5860/CHOICE.185784

Greene (Stricken Field: The Little Bighorn Since 1876), a retired National Park Service research historian, has written an impressive overview of the brutal 1890 massacre of Lakota Sioux men, women, and children noncombatants by the U.S. Seventh Cavalry, which effectively closed the era of the Western frontier on the Great Plains. Documenting events in considerable detail and drawing from newly available oral accounts by Plains Indians, the author succeeds in placing the massacre in broad historical context. Pointing to similar premeditated massacres by U.S. troops at Sand Creek in Colorado Territory, Marias River in Montana Territory, and Bear River in Washington Territory, Greene notes the U.S. government's pattern of using military force to coerce and subjugate native peoples. Nine appendixes provide detailed information on topics ranging from the U.S. government's 1868 treaty with the Sioux and Arapaho to a list of Wounded Knee survivors still living in 1941. VERDICT Greene handles his subject with sensitivity and balances the perspectives of Native Americans and U.S. military personnel. Highly recommended to academic researchers and all readers ready for an uncompromised account of an American tragedy.—Nathan Bender, Albany Cty. P.L., Laramie, WY