100 books like From the Deep Woods to Civilization

James Donovan combined impeccable research with an engaging style to produce the best book about the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The battle is the subject of more books than just about any other fight in American history, but Donovan’s has set a new standard. I referred to the book regularly while writing my biography of Custer. You can’t really begin to understand a complex battle like the Little Bighorn without a seasoned guide. But Donovan doesn’t just explain the battle. He writes in a way that gives his book the feel of a novel rather than a dry recitation of facts. A Terrible Glory will take you on an exciting ride and teach you everything you need to know about Custer’s Last Stand.

Buffalo Calf Road Woman is a riveting historical account based on true events.

This compelling narrative portrays the remarkable Cheyenne woman known for her valor in both the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Battle of the Rosebud. Buffalo Calf Road Woman's courage shines through as she fearlessly charges into chaos, rescuing her brother from certain death.

The book immerses readers in the harsh realities of pioneer migration, showcasing the devastating consequences to the native tribes. I was captivated by the raw power of the storytelling and inspired by the unwavering bravery of Buffalo Calf Road Woman.

And these opening lines! “The end of the world began that day. Not slowly or quietly, not piece by piece or by degrees, but as a calamity that brings another and another and another." A powerful, thought-provoking novel. 

For more than eighty years, the Cheyenne warrior Wooden Leg did a bit of just about everything. He joined a warrior society as a boy, fought against Custer and Crook in the Indian Wars, rode as an army scout, served as a tribal judge, converted to Christianity, and had to divorce one of his two wives (a heartrending scene!) before his new religion would accept him. His story is told by Thomas Marquis, a Cheyenne agency physician, who translated Wooden Leg’s story from sign language since they didn’t speak each other’s mother tongue. This is one of the best accounts of how Plains Indian men negotiated the challenge of transitioning from traditional ways to life on the reservation.

This is the story of Jack Crabbe. Jack was reared by both white and Cheyenne folks.

His story is a masterpiece and describes the destruction of Native Americans along with their way of life (including the bison they relied on). According to Jack, he even participated in the Battle of Little Big Horn and was the only white man who survived.

I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in American history and who wants to read about it in an entertaining way. There’s no way to disguise the hateful way European settlers wiped out native tribes and/or enslaved Natives and Blacks, but at least this is an engaging account thereof.

To my experience, this was the first novel of alternative historical fiction.

What if General George Armstrong Custer had survived the Battle of Little Bighorn? I loved the idea that history could be turned on its ear. The most fascinating parts of the book are the court appearances of Major Reno and Captain Benteen, who both survived the Little Bighorn.

Author Jones used their actual testimonies from Reno’s 1879 trial in Chicago. Having been to the battlefield, I understood better how the fight turned against Custer after reading this book. It’s well worth the read.

I loved this book enough to read it twice. In fact, felt compelled to read it twice because of Connell’s amazing portrayal of Custer and dozens of other figures, both American and Native American, both well-known and obscure.

The battle of the Little Bighorn lasted only a few hours but had an amazing impact, and Connell tells the story with remarkable originality.     

I bought this book in Chicago and read all 151 pages on a flight back to Dallas. Soldier Boy is a young adult fiction book that grabbed me from the first-page description of a bare-knuckle fight between the teenage protagonist, Johnny “the Kid” McBane, and an unnamed palooka in a gritty Chicago gambling house. McBane joins the Army to escape some hoodlums, and the story never lets up as it takes him to the frontier and eventually the Little Bighorn. I’ve many read many fictionalized accounts of the Little Bighorn. This is the best. Soldier Boy is a great read but also an excellent insight into the experience of many underage soldiers in the frontier Army. The ending will stay with you long after you finish the book.

When I first heard about Custer’s Trials, I thought it was almost sacrilegious to write a biography of the Boy General without a full, descriptive chapter on the Last Stand. Stiles instead covered the battle in an epilogue about the Court of Enquiry into the conduct of Maj. Marcus Reno at the Little Bighorn, where he was Custer’s second in command. Nevertheless, Stiles’ book is an engrossing psychological portrait of Custer that puts his life in the context of his times. Stiles addresses the changes in American culture—moving toward a modern, industrial society—that shaped the lives of the Civil War generation. You’ll not only get a new view of Custer from reading Custer’s Trials, you’ll get a better understanding of the development of the United States.

Charles Eastman was born and raised as a Sioux native and wound up going to Boston University and becoming a physician, summer camp founder, national lecturer, and reformer. In the early 20th century, he was a prolific author and speaker on Sioux history. His description of Sioux childhoods illustrates both Shepard's portrait of traditional hunting and gathering childhoods and Pearce's portrait of bonding with the earth in middle childhood. His book provides guidance for parents who want their children to have more "wild" childhoods. 

Sherman Alexie gives it everything he’s got in this sprawling, messy, brilliant memoir. Using his mother’s funeral as a jumping-off point, he investigates her chaotic life in an effort to understand the enigma of her personality and the nature of his complicated relationship with her. The contradictions he uncovers, the bits and pieces of information he’s able to glean, and the incongruities in the stories he discovers are stitched together in a narrative he likens to a patchwork quilt: disparate parts brought together that somehow make a whole.

I love the rawness of this memoir, the humor, the mixed genres, and especially the way that Alexie doesn’t spare himself in his examination of how things turned out as they did. He emerges as a not altogether likable player in the vast tragic comedy of his family. In unraveling his relationship with his mother, he uncovers his own demons, the secrets… show more.