Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1995
Abstract
In the past decade biography as a field within American history has made a strong comeback, and Robert M. Utley's study of the Hunkpapa Lakota (Sioux) leader Sitting Bull is an excellent contribution to the field. Writing the life story of an Indian leader who died more than one hundred years ago is difficult at best. For example, even the birth date of the subject is open to question. Nevertheless, the author has written a thorough, balanced, and informed book. In it Sitting Bull emerges as a rational person living within his culture, having recognizable goals, and experiencing both success and failure. Utley's narrative rests solidly on what is known or can be reconstructed about nineteenth-century Hunkpapa society.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 15:4 (Fall 1995). Copyright © 1995 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.