Aleshire's book is the perfect starter for someone at an embryonic stage of interest in the Apache Wars. It is accurate, very well-written, and a great foundation for those who want to know more about the fascinating subject of the Apache Wars. I personally used it as a source in my masters thesis. Alseshire is an exceptional writer. His newest work, "The Fox and the Whirlwind" will go down as one of the best in the category of literature on the Apache Wars.

Historical fiction from a white male Arizona State University Professor. He makes up a biography of the Story of Lozen, Apache Warrior and Shaman.

Same old stale info with absolutely no excitement for the reader. Would probably be good for junior-high student who hasn't read anything about the Apaches or Lozen.

This book, though rather dry at times, is still a fascinating account of a forgotten warrior. Detailing the life of Lozen is a worthy endeavor (though it's been done before in another book called "Lozen: Apache Woman Warrior" - which is also worth reading by the way.) I found this book to be well worth reading, as well - it's one of those history explorations that seem to take you back to the time and place of it's account, and spark your imagination to what the life of the people of that time might have been like. I hope more people read this book so that Lozen's name is not forgotten (as so many great, historical women in other cultures are) I would love it if one day her name were as recognizable as Geronimo or Crazy Horse. Maybe this book will help with that - who knows!

What a sorry mess of a book. This a shallowly researched retelling of the lives of these fighters, based on outdated secondary sources. In fact, it reads like apologia for Crook. It is well known today that only 500-750 Lakota and Cheyenne warriors faced Crook (and his 1300 men) and beat him at the Rosebud, yet Aleshire tries to claim that the two sides were of equal strength. And later, the role of Crook in conspiring with Red Cloud to remove Crazy Horse as a potential rival to Red Cloud (who had no civil authority with the Oglala except that handed to him by Americans) is not even mentioned. Instead, Crook is portrayed as innocent of having anything to do with the death of Crazy Horse. I freely admit to knowing much more about the Lakota than about the Apaches. But if Aleshire can not get these details right, why should I trust anything he has to say about the Apache aspects? Again, this seems like a book designed to gloss over Crook's moral lapses, perhaps as a counter to recent books that expose these sad events.

I am a Phoenix, Arizona native and I Loved This Book! I bought 3 copies to share with family and friends for Christmas.

Although I have lived in Phoenix and the White Mountains of Arizona all of my life and have known of the diverse Native American nations sharing our community, I had never heard the fascinating histories told with such depth and detail. I enjoyed the dual biography format of the book which allowed the reader to see General Crook and Geronimo side by side as men in opposing political environments.

The descriptive, creative language Aleshire uses makes the scenes come to life as if I were there. His story makes the history of the White Mountains, Chirichauas, San Carlos areas rich, deep and vivid with history.

Many thanks to Peter Aleshire from an Arizona native.

I have to admit that I did not read the entire book. I started skimming through it, and was completely shocked by several errors on the basic historical facts. Such errors in a book such as this are inexcusable, and reflect poorly on both the author and his editor.

First, the author refers to the removal of the Navajo tribe to "Bosque Redondo" "on the banks of the Rio Grande." As any historian of the Southwest knows, or certainly should know, Bosque Redondo was near Ft. Sumner, New Mexico, on the banks of the PECOS RIVER, not the Rio Grande River. Such an error is just pitiful.

Second, in one footnote (n. 11, page 314), the author states that the Confederates "gathered their forces for the battle of Val Verde, where they failed to turn back a column of Union troops from Colorado. After this defeat, the Confederates abandoned New Mexico. . . ." As ANY historian of the Civil War in the Southwest would know, the battle of Valverde, south of Socorro, New Mexico, was a Confederate victory, not a defeat. As a result of that victory, the Confederates did not turn back and return to Texas; they marched right up the Rio Grande and captured Albuquerque and then the territorial capital of Santa Fe. It was later at the battle of Glorieta, not Valverde, that the Confederates met a column of soldiers from Colorado, and met with a defeat which caused them to abandon New Mexico.

I cannot believe that a book such as this could contain such basic errors. When I saw these errors, I put aside reading any more of this book since it was obvious that one could not read it with any confidence that it was based on historical accuracy. I returned the book to the bookstore for a refund.

I at first thought it was daring for Aleshire to write this biography in the style of Sandoz's Crazy Horse. I soon found out that it was actually a big mistake.

For those not familiar with Sandoz's biography, she wrote it more in the style of a historical novel. Though it was based on extensive research, she chose to tell the story in the style in which Crazy Horse's Indian contemporaries might have told it. Also, in cases where there were different versions of events, she chose only one version, in order to keep the story flowing. I thought Aleshie daring to write in this style because, though I thought it worked well, Sandoz suffered much ridicule for it.

However, I found that this style did not lend itself very well to the subject of Cochise, for several reasons. First, the author simply did not know as much about Cochise as Sandoz did about Crazy Horse. For the sake of the story, for example, Aleshire assumes that Pisago Cabezon was Cochise's father. However, in a footnote he tells us that Cochise's father could have been one of three different people. So, when he later uses the murder of Cabezon as one of the motives for Cochise's hatred of the whites, it falls flat.

Also,like Sandoz with Crazy Horse, Aleshire tries to present Cochise as someone who meditates, and tries to "keep his mind smooth." However, if the author is correct, he also had an uncontrollable temper, and actually killed several members of his own band in anger. And despite the author's protests that warriors followed him out of respect for his achievements in battle, it sounded much more like he ruled out of fear. This would have made him highly unusual amongst Indian leaders. However, the author seems determined to gloss over this controversial topic.

THere also appears to be little of substance here. As this is the first book I've read on the Indians of the Southwest, I can't say whether it is due to lack of research, or a simple dearth of available information. I did note that the biography seemed to be based largely on secondary sources, and that there appeared to be little orignal research. There were also some really bad errors in some of the dates contained in the footnotes, though I assume this was an editing problem.

All in all, I was hoping for much more here, and I didn't get it.