Encyclopedia of Indian Wars: Western Battles and Skirmishes 1850-1890

Rating:
Summary: A unique reference work
Review: For anyone interested in any but the biggest, most famous of battles during the Indian Wars of the last half of the Nineteenth Century, there has been no reference work available to which the interested reader could turn to get the basic facts. Now, in the "Encyclopedia of Indian Wars: Western Battles and Skirmishes, 1850-1890", Greg Michno presents concise descriptions of over 600 fights, addressing the who-what-when-where of each incident. They are chronologically arranged, but keyed to excellent maps that allow the reader to quickly located battles that occurred in any particular region. Not all the fights involved the US Army; some were waged by volunteer troops or, occasionally, only civilians. In an appendix, summary statistics are given regarding the the frequency and time distribution of the battles, what Army units were involved, and what level of casualties were inflicted on both sides.

Rating:
Summary: A MUST-HAVE BOOK
Review: Mr. Michno has done something I have never seen. He has published a book that consists of historical information that is IMPARTIAL to either side of the conflicts. It is plain facts with no opinionated frilly storytelling or taking sides. This book has given me a greater understanding of what was going on during the Indian Wars. It has great cross-referencing and maps. It is also a great book for road travel too!

Rating:
Summary: A MUST-HAVE BOOK
Review: Mr. Michno has done something I have never seen. He has published a book that consists of historical information that is IMPARTIAL to either side of the conflicts. It is plain facts with no opinionated frilly storytelling or taking sides. This book has given me a greater understanding of what was going on during the Indian Wars. It has great cross-referencing and maps. It is also a great book for road travel too!

Rating:
Summary: The Maps Are Worth The Book Alone
Review: One can quickly understand the exerted effort that went into the research of this book. Encyclopedia of Indian Wars is a must have book for anyone interested in the battles fought between 1850-1890.

The book is organized in an easy but efficient way for the reader. The battles are first listed by year followed in order by date. Page 362 has a great graph that shows the years followed by how many battles occurred in each year.

Then, the reader comes to Appendix: Data and Commentary where the author provides tables of statistics that focus on everything from which tribes had the most battles to states ranked by number of battles with total white and Indian casualties.

But, forget all that - this book is worth it alone just for the maps with a legend key to every battle, location and date.

This is a book every Indian war enthusiast will want.

Rating:
Summary: Native American wars...with a new twist
Review: This book is a compilation of almost all Native American Wars, including why they happened, thier relevance to society, and their relevance to you paper in general. Definetly a good book to get if you are writing a paper or just want to learn about the social impact war had on Native American and European culture or interactions!

Rating:
Summary: Michno has done it again!
Review: What a valuable reference for devotees of the western Indian Wars! Detail-obsessed Gregory Michno had done us all a great service by putting in one volume nearly all of the small battles and skirmishes you probably never heard of. This is the point of this book. Do not expect exhaustive recounts of the larger, better known battles. Even Little Bighorn is not given a full page, but that's good. You won't buy this book for that. You will buy it IF you want information on the lesser battles and skirmishes that are very difficult to find any info about at all, let alone the details Michno has been able to gather.

There are no battle maps. There are only state maps showing the general location of each battle/skirmish. There are also photos thrown in every 3-4 pages usually of the site of one of the fights. That's a nice touch.

And what a deal! A great price for a 400+ page REFERENCE book crammed full of information, 3 indexes, an appendix, and a conclusion complete with tables and charts. Get it.