READ: "Empire of the Summer Moon"

To this day, a full moon over Texas is called a Comanche moon—a pioneer warning leftover from an angrier time.

When the Spanish conquistadors brought horses to the New World, they helped create a world power that would halt aggressive Western expansion for centuries. Comanche horse soldiers became the greatest calvary the world has ever known, ruling their portion of the early frontier for generations and creating a nomadic kingdom within the dangerous, buffalo-rich plains of the American Southwest. It was many decades before these Spartanesque warriors released their punishing chokehold on Manifest Destiny.

This story is told in microcosm through the lives of two men: Jack Bridges, the greatest Indian fighter in American history; and Quannah, the half-white chieftan son of Cynthia Ann Parker, who baffled white America by choosing her kidnappers over her kin. Quannah would live to bridge the worlds between his tribe and his mother’s people.

Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne launched a new wave of Native American writing and scholarship. No library of the American West is complete without this powerful saga of the legendary Comanche horse soldiers.

Content warnings: Extreme violence, graphic and disturbing images. Not recommended for children.