Tecumseh: A Life

Rating:
Summary: Maybe the best on Tecumseh yet
Review: As a history student whose interests are in the Colonial period to the Civil War I was intrigued with this book on Tecumseh. It was well written and very informative of the Shawnee Chief's career. Not only was this a wonderful resource guide but most importantly it was an easy read, which is essential for college students. True, Tecumseh spread a lot of blood on the plains of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky but his teachings along with his brother Tenskawatawa are the important keys to understanding the will of Tecumseh.

Rating:
Summary: Maybe the best on Tecumseh yet
Review: As a history student whose interests are in the Colonial period to the Civil War I was intrigued with this book on Tecumseh. It was well written and very informative of the Shawnee Chief's career. Not only was this a wonderful resource guide but most importantly it was an easy read, which is essential for college students. True, Tecumseh spread a lot of blood on the plains of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky but his teachings along with his brother Tenskawatawa are the important keys to understanding the will of Tecumseh.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining in the least
Review: I am a fan of Tecumseh's, and this book was a good read. However, it fails in comparison with the works of Alan Eckert. Eckert's book, titled "A Sorrow In Our Heart", is a much better read and goes into more detail of Tecumseh's life and the life of his people. If you were going to read a book on Tecumseh I would only recommend Eckert's version. It is much more engrossing and by far much harder to put down. It is also three times the length of John Sugden's version.

Rating:
Summary: Tecumseh: A Life...Better the Second Time Around
Review: John Sudgen's "Tecumseh: A Life" is one of the more recent biographies of the famous Shawnee leader. Upon first reading of this book, I was not greatly impressed as the text was rather dry and languid. However, after delving more deeply into other works on Tecumseh's background and history of the War of 1812, I felt this work perhaps deserved another look.

Tecumseh of course is the famous Shawnee war leader who resisted American expansion into the Northwest Territory in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He has been the subject of many books and movies, many of them fanciful presentations of the mythical image that has grown up around the man that many have called the greatest Indian leader of all time. Tecumseh's dream of a powerful pan-Indian confederacy was visionary in scope as he hoped to unite not just a few, but ALL the Indian tribes east of the Missisippi and beyond against the flood of white settlers pouring across the Appalachian Mountains. Tecumseh came closer than any others to succeeding in that vision, but the British defeat in the War of 1812 and Tecumseh's death at the Battle of Moraviantown in 1813 ended that dream forever.

Sudgen's book helps to dispel many of the myths and tries to present the known facts about Tecumseh's life. While not nearly as engaging as Allan Eckert's "A Sorrow In Our Hearts", this book serves as a decent, if still somewhat slow going telling of the life of an undeniably capable leader. Sudgen also takes time to bash research of other historians who have done work on Tecumseh, ostensibly to help clarify the many myths and misconceptions that have grown up around the Shawnee leader in the past 200 hundred years, but the chapter comes off as more of a rant against other authors and diminishes the impact of the book. After reading Sudgen's work, I would recommend checking out not only Eckert's books on Tecumseh, but also "A Wampum Denied" by Sandy Antal and "The Shawnee Prophet" by R. David Edmunds for a more in-depth understanding of Tecumseh's life and times.

Rating:
Summary: Tecumseh: A Life...Better the Second Time Around
Review: John Sudgen's "Tecumseh: A Life" is one of the more recent biographies of the famous Shawnee leader. Upon first reading of this book, I was not greatly impressed as the text was rather dry and languid. However, after delving more deeply into other works on Tecumseh's background and history of the War of 1812, I felt this work perhaps deserved another look.

Tecumseh of course is the famous Shawnee war leader who resisted American expansion into the Northwest Territory in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He has been the subject of many books and movies, many of them fanciful presentations of the mythical image that has grown up around the man that many have called the greatest Indian leader of all time. Tecumseh's dream of a powerful pan-Indian confederacy was visionary in scope as he hoped to unite not just a few, but ALL the Indian tribes east of the Missisippi and beyond against the flood of white settlers pouring across the Appalachian Mountains. Tecumseh came closer than any others to succeeding in that vision, but the British defeat in the War of 1812 and Tecumseh's death at the Battle of Moraviantown in 1813 ended that dream forever.

Sudgen's book helps to dispel many of the myths and tries to present the known facts about Tecumseh's life. While not nearly as engaging as Allan Eckert's "A Sorrow In Our Hearts", this book serves as a decent, if still somewhat slow going telling of the life of an undeniably capable leader. Sudgen also takes time to bash research of other historians who have done work on Tecumseh, ostensibly to help clarify the many myths and misconceptions that have grown up around the Shawnee leader in the past 200 hundred years, but the chapter comes off as more of a rant against other authors and diminishes the impact of the book. After reading Sudgen's work, I would recommend checking out not only Eckert's books on Tecumseh, but also "A Wampum Denied" by Sandy Antal and "The Shawnee Prophet" by R. David Edmunds for a more in-depth understanding of Tecumseh's life and times.

Rating:
Summary: A well balanced and thoroughly researched life and times
Review: John Sugden's "Tecumseh" is more than a well researched biography of the great Indian chief; it is also a moving story of the clash of cultures in the Old Northwest in the late 18th and early 19th century. At no time are the Indians portrayed as the "gentle children of nature" oppressed by the wicked white man...a portrayal that has become all too common in our era where history is too often written from the viewpoint of the underclass. Instead, the Indians are portrayed as human beings ( at times noble and at times savage ) struggling to survive the whirlwind of the white world that was destroying their way of life.

Tecumseh's life and character are well documented and his dream of an Indian confederacy, united to resist the American seizure of Indian land, is the centerpiece of the book. Other Indian leaders, as well as Tecumseh's brother The Prophet, figure in the narative, as do the different approaches the various tribes took in dealing with the Big Knives. An understanding of Tecumseh's life is not the only reward derived from a reading of this book. One also comes away with a much deeper understanding of the divisions within the Indian world and the various problems they faced within a way of life on the road to extinction. At the end, one senses the true depth of the tragedy, and gains an admiration for a man of great character and nobility, who gave of all his energy, in an attempt to save his people and their way of life.

Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal, inspiring, poignant
Review: My knowledge of Tecumseh has been limited to what I have seen in a school filmstrip/tape. This book is well researched and gives a thorough description of Tecumseh's efforts to unite the various Indian tribes in an effort to keep their land from the advancing whites. The Battle of Tippicanoe against Wm. Henry Harrison is covered as is The War of 1812 in which Tecumseh allied himself with the British to advance the Indians' cause in stemming the tide against the United States. The entire book seems to be one battle after another, and I guess that's the way it was for the Indians in a futile effort to keep their land. Tecumseh's brother, The Prophet, is also covered and they appear to be two complete opposites. Tecumseh is eventually killed in battle in Ontario during The War of 1812, but he certainly has to get an "A" for effort in trying to unite the Indian tribes in their common cause of keeping their land. Their is a lot of information in the book, and at times, it gets somewhat long. However, the fact that I gave the book 4 stars instead of 5 is not the fault of the book. It would be because my background on the subject was nill when I started.

Rating:
Summary: Well-written, but burdened with too much information.
Review: Sugden's book is well-written and well-organized, but suffers occasionally from a surfeit of information. It is not essential to the story or truth of the great chief's life that Sugden account for his whereabouts every waking day, as he sometimes seems to be attempting. More burdensome is his citing of sources to support his claims. This record is essential in terms of scholarship, however, and paints a portrait of a heroic figure well worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Rehash of better works. Don't bother with this one.
Review: The author says in his preface, "this is the first book on Tecumseh to be grounded in thorough research into the history and historical culture of Tecumseh's people, the Shawnees." Just whom does he think he's kidding? That means he thinks that none of the other authors--such as Bil Gilbert, author of the 1989 biography of Tecumseh entitled GOD GAVE US THIS COUNTRY--did their research. Honestly, Gilbert did a much better job, both in the text and the notes. Sugden's school-marmish style worries more with minor aside details and private agendas than in telling us the story of Tecumseh. Nothing new of note is presented in this mundane work.

Rating:
Summary: Good on facts, but somewhat dry.
Review: This appears to be a thoughly researched book, but could use a little more editing. The author sometimes takes a much-to-long time to make his point (such as the many, many words devoted to whether Tecumseh's mother was maybe a Creek indian--the point is made and then repeated over and over). Also, I thought it would be impossible to make the story of Tecumseh anything but exciting. Sugden does it occasionally, however, and is sometimes a bit dry and even boring at times. A little editing would help here. This book would be better at 3/4 its present length. That said, this book is very good otherwise and is a great historical piece of work; and very enjoyable and readable for the most part. The most irritating thing about the book is Sugden's apparent ego. At the end of the book he lets us know that his research is right, everyone elses is wrong and all other books don't come close to matching his wonderous writings. Leave that part out, Sugden, and I wouldn't been as critical of the rest. This self promotion on Sugden's part ruined the book for me. Knocked the book from a 4 to a 1 for me. One of the books Sugden condemns is Allan Eckert's "A Sorrow in Our Heart." Yes, Eckert's book gets a bit flowery at times, but never is it dry or boring. And both Sugden's and Eckert's books present the same general facts. Only details are different, which could be expected when writing about someone who died nearly 200 years ago. Gee whiz, Sugden, let your work do the talking--why the put down of not only Eckert but seemingly everyone who has wrote of Tecumseh? What are you--the perfect historian? Don't ever get any facts wrong from piles of conflicting research material? And the worst part of it is, you attack the authors of previous works, not the work. If you have found an error in others' work, just say so; why the personal attacks on the authors? You are a little man, Sugden.