Book Review: Empire of Shadows

When I contemplated starting a blog the reason was pretty simple:  To share my family's adventures in the written word.  The problem, however, is a combination of geography and employment.  Living in central Texas the weather is hot and dry in the summers when there is time to do things, and pleasant during the spring and fall when I am back to work with limited opportunities to get in the car and drive.  As a school teacher, taking off work for a few days is often harder than the responsibilities of the day.

Therefore, much of the time adventure must be found in the 400 or so pages of a good book.  I had not intended to branch beyond travel and personal escapades, but the truth is, a book can take you places when time and money is in short supply.

As such, my summer reading included a nonfiction work entitled Empire of Shadows: The Epic Story of Yellowstone by George Black.  Last summer we made a trip that covered 13 states, 7 national parks and over 5000 miles, with Yellowstone the highwater mark of the trip.  We spent the bulk of the time there seeing the sights (and we still did not see them all).  While there, one of the souvenirs we picked up was the above-mentioned book.  Stephanie read it while on the trip and told me then how good it was but I was reading one I had picked up at the Little Bighorn Battlefield, and after getting home graduate coursework loomed.  So Empire of Shadows went on the shelf.  

Until we returned from the Rockies this summer, and a wanderlust to spend more time there could not be satisfied with loading the car again.  So transportation would have to come with the printed word.

From the dust jacket:

Empire of Shadows is the epic story of the conquest of Yellowstone, a landscape uninhabited, inaccessible, and shrouded in myth in the aftermath of the Civil War.  In a radical reinterpretation of the nineteenth century West, George Black casts Yellowstone's creation as the culmination of three interwoven strands of history - the passion for exploration, the violence of the Indian Wars, and the "civilizing" of the frontier - and charts its course through the lives of those who sought to lay bare its mysteries:  Lt. Gustavus Cheyney Doane, a gifted by tormented cavalryman; the ambitious former vigilante leader Nathaniel Langford; scientist Ferdinand Hayden, who brought photographer William Henry Jackson and painter Thomas Moran to Yellowstone; and Gen. Phil Sheridan, Civil War hero, architect of the Indian Wars, and the man who finally succeeded in having the new National Park placed under the protection of the US Cavalry.  The exploration of Yellowstone is a quintessentially American story of terrible things done in the name of high ideals, and of high ideals realized by dubious means.  George Black's Empire of Shadows is a groundbreaking historical account of the origins of America's majestic national landmark.

All told, this is an excellent summary, although I would argue that Hayden plays second-fiddle to the other personalities in the book.  Also neglected in the blurb is the early history of the region, particularly the mountain men and trappers who were the first Anglos to set foot in the region called Yellowstone. Equally important was a thorough discussion of the various tribes of the Northern plains and their unique interactions with the White man, and how those relationships changed, from the time of Lewis and Clark to the ultimate end of the Indian Wars.  

Click for the source of the image here.

If you are interested in a specialized history, be it Yellowstone, the American West, the National Park system, or the American Indian, this book is an enlightening read.  

Books can take you places you have never been or back to places that you want to see again.  This is the case for me.  Yellowstone was a memorable experience for us, and the expanse of the park was such that it was impossible to see it all in the time we had set aside.  Empire of Shadows took me back to notable landmarks, and has set in me a deep desire to go back again!