Mr. Sides is an eloquent writer and shared an exceptional story. His vocabulary and writing skills are remarkable.

In my quest to better understand the history of the Southwest and of New Mexico, in particular, and the Indian Wars, this book was enlightening, not so much because it was about Kit Carson, but because of the "rest of the story," and the author's vivid descriptions and story-telling skills. ( )

231038607 ( )

Great info on Navajo indians, Kit Carson and New Mexico. I don't like to notice the trouble the author had putting a book together while I am reading it. ( )

Fantastic read for anyone interested in American history. ( )

Kit Carson represents an old-fashioned ideal of the Wild West mountain man who helped to settle the United States during the heyday of Western expansion. In Blood and Thunder, author Hampton Sides tries to bring some modern sensibilities to the story as he writes alternating histories of Carson and the Navajo tribe that Carson ultimately helps to defeat. Sides uses a lot of primary sources to try and paint Carson and the Navajo in an honest light, but the book stays clearly in the pro-Carson lane while exploring the atrocities endured by the Native American tribes. A little bit long and redundant at times, Blood and Thunder was still a fascinating and deep dive into Carson and the history of the West. ( )

Outstanding, informative, and thoroughly entertaining.
( )

One of the best narrative histories I’ve read in recent years, Hampton Sides’ impressive work cuts through the legends and myths that have developed around Kit Carson, provides a balanced view of his personality and, in the process, draws a vivid picture of what life was like in the 1820’s – 1860’s in western America. Carson became famous during his time, but shunned celebrity. He was unschooled but spoke many languages. He was seen both as a hero and villain, depending on perspective. This book explores his complex personality, fierce loyalty, quiet demeanor, and decisive actions. Almost like an 1800’s version of Forrest Gump, Carson had a knack for being at the center of significant historical events. Sides focuses on Carson’s remarkable life as a focal point and common thread in conveying the often-brutal history of the American West, covering the panoramic drama that shaped the history of the region.

I gained an appreciation for the personalities involved – not only Kit Carson, but also John C. Fremont, James K. Polk, Stephen Watts Kearny, Edward Canby, Thomas Hart Benton, Jessie Benton Fremont, James Henry Carleton, Navajo leaders Narbona, Manuelito, and Barboncito, and a host of others. This book covers Carson’s many roles as a trapper, scout, explorer, soldier, and family man. It never strays too far from his life in relating historic events. It covers a vast swath of history: the expansion of the United States into current-day California, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, the Mexican-American War, the American Civil War battles in New Mexico, and the internecine clashes with the Navajo and other tribes. A significant portion is devoted to the encroachment of white civilization on the aboriginal people, as well as related salient issues such as reservations, relocation, and attempts to change their customs and ways of life.

I particularly enjoyed the author’s writing style, which flows artfully and elegantly. His descriptions of the terrain are stunning. He has a gift for telling a compelling story while imparting historic facts. The structure of this book is like a dog herding sheep, shifting among different perspectives, but keeping the multiple storylines moving along. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of American western expansion and corresponding impact on its people, land, and culture. ( )

Fascinating story and it is true. I don't think I ever learned in school very much about how the United States acquired the area that is now Arizona and New Mexico. Now I know. President Polk, our 11th President is very interesting. He was very much responsible for 'Manifest Destiny' and the expansion of this country from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The book details how the US coming into this area affected the Native Americans living there and the Spanish and Mexican people who had been there for years. The star of the book is Kit Carson. How one man could accomplish so much is amazing. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about this area of the US during the mid-1800s. ( )

I had never heard of this book until I went to Kit Carson's home in Taos, NM. I would love to visit the places mentioned in it. ( )

I enjoyed this history read and found it a page turner, but doubt the sourcing and veracity of most of what's contained within it. The text contains few indicators for source and the descriptions of people, places, and events favor a novel. It was a good holiday week read, but not one that I'll re-read. ( )

This is a very well researched history of the American Southwest in the mid 19th century, focusing primarily on conflict between the Mexicans, Americans, and the native Americans. The central figure is "Kit" Carson. He is portrayed as a simple man of extraordinary skill that was thrust into an amazing life of involvement in many key aspects of the history of the region. Carson is also shown to have been a very complex individual capable of extreme violence even sadism while maintaining respect and admiration for his "opponents". To me, the book does not portray him as a hero - rather as an important cog in the American expansionist "machine" that ultimately almost exterminated the Native Americans. By the end of his life he seemed to understand the impact of his life and actions on the tribes - with some regret. Unfortunately, too little - too late. ( )

Excellent book in all respects. Well-written, researched, w/ great source info. Learned a lot from this book....and I got it signed in Pecos by the author! ( )

A fact filled history of the American conquest of the West
Kit Carson is a focal point from his youth to his death.
Excellent insight into Indian tribes of the west and early hispanic settlers .

4 star ( )

This a history book that reads like a novel. Sides does a good job of introducing the reader to Kit Carson and the American west. ( )

A terrific book. The topic is the clash between Anglo and Indian cultures (primarily Navaho) in the SW United States in the mid-19th century. Also important to the narrative is the story of Kit Carson, who turns out to be quite an interesting guy. Sides has a knack of bringing the history to life by adding novelistic touches (e.g., "The horse snorted as they followed the trail under a brilliant cerulean sky.") I have no idea how Sides knew what the horse did or what color the sky was on that particular day, but these little flourishes pull one into the story and keep one turning the pages. ( )

Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides is actually comprised of two main, concurrent narratives. One is a biography of the near-mythical American West pioneer Christopher "Kit" Carson. The other, in severe contrast, is the U.S. government-instigated decline of the Navajo Indian tribe. There's an additional, less obvious narrative in the form of a place instead of a person, and it's the focal point of the entire book: The territory of New Mexico.

Kit Carson was barely a young man of 16 when he bid goodbye to his apprenticeship life in Franklin, Missouri and "jumped off" along the Santa Fe Trail, westward bound toward adventure. This was in the mid 1820's. Once settled in Taos, New Mexico, at the southern end of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, he learned the fur trapping trade from a local explorer, and consequently became fluent in the languages of Spanish, Navajo, Apache, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Paiute, Shoshone, and Ute. He achieved this feat despite being illiterate. For the next several decades, Carson's work would send him back and forth all across the American continent though he would always think of Taos as his home. From California to Washington, D.C., he had a knack for being in the right place at the right time in some of the country's most noteworthy events of the westward expansion era. As word spread, the legend of Kit Carson grew.

One anecdote from the book, a favorite of mine on Carson's burgeoning fame, tells of a chance encounter with a traveler upon the Oregon Trail. "I say, stranger, are you Kit Carson?" the man asked. Carson responded yes, but the man remained doubtful given the stories he had heard back home. "Look 'ere, you ain't the kind of Kit Carson I'm looking for."

My interest in American history is a recent one. Back in school the subject bored me into a stupor—by far my least favorite. It took a little traveling and a lot of growing up before my attitude changed. The key moment was I believe when I learned that our collective notion of The Ol' West is largely made up. It's a mythology born out of our love for stories positioned at the intersection of the wild frontier and the progress of man. I love a good western, but armed with this new discovery I now desire to understand real history, to separate fable from fact. Blood and Thunder is exactly this kind of book. ( )

Lots of adventure stories from the 1840s-1860s mostly in New Mexico. Kit Carson is the protagonist but there are many many others, if you can keep track. Gives due attention to Indian points of view, as well as Spanish and Mexican. There's a sense of rapid change, one period ending and another beginning. Ultimately a very sad story, and one that didn't have to be. Compare in Asia where the Soviets destroyed the nomadic horse people of Kazakhstan but in Mongolia they still exist without interruption. The book is wide ranging and a Western true-stories greatest hits tamed into a readable narrative with Kit Carson at the center. ( )

22. Blood and Thunder : An Epic of the American West (Audio) 
by Hampton Sides, read by Don Leslie (2006, 624 pages in paper format, Listened Apr 1-19)

An excellent work of history, with a structure that gives it something of an accumulative affect. The first several chapters are not that striking and left me wondering where this was going and what the subtitle, "An Epic of the American West" meant, and why the book was spending so much time with Kit Carson and so little time with all the other stuff going on in the "American west" at that time.

The book is about Kit Carson, and also everything happening around him, especially in New Mexico, including fascinating and rewarding extensive sections on the Navajos. Carson's life covers several eras in the rapidly changing 19th-century Spanish-to-Mexican-to-American (as in USA) West. Carson was mountain man, and like them all, he had outlandish traits. But Carson out-lived the mountain man era; yet, unlike all those other characters, Carson's traits translated very well into the what was valuable on the US frontier. The brutal killer and survivor had some strong moral aspects to him, along with extensive survival and tracking skills, intimate knowledge of several native cultures and languages, working knowledge of Spanish and French, an always on edge always productive nature and an almost always shockingly reasonable, even under fire, pain and stress, mind. Carson also could not read or write.

He stumbled into a becoming John C. Freemont's guide in all his successful western exploration trips - and really Freemont was completely dependent on Carson and maybe they should have been known as Carson trips. But Freemont's accounts are what first made Carson famous. After Freemont, Carson stumbled into becoming part of the US military, as guide through the New Mexico/Arizona/California desert during the Mexican America war, leading Spanish-speaking troops on the strange far western front during the Civil War, and finally as the main (but reluctant) man in taking down the Navajo Indians.

And this is where the book gets so interesting. I had no idea the Navajo were so brutal or so unstoppable. The Spanish towns existed barely, cowering in fear and at the mercy of the Navajos for literally centuries. Losing people and stock and horses was the norm, and so was owning Navajo slaves, a policy which outlived the Civil War. But, wow, what wonderful brutes these Navajos were, ruling the desert, keeping everyone out of their territory, maintaining a unique native culture unlike any around them and maintaining a language shared only by native tribes in far northern Canada (and the Navajos have a mythology of moving south). I say brutes, because that is the only way to characterize the Navajo warriors, whose life was one of raiding and killing. But that was only a small part of their culture. Anyway, they are far more interesting than Carson, even as his best, and, of course, they are tragic. Like all tribes, the Navajos, dominating their world c.1800, were dying on reservations by about 1870.

Recommended for anyone with Native American interests, or wanting to better understand the history of New Mexico.

2014
https://www.librarything.com/topic/172769#4665530 ( )

I loved this book. It made me want to drive out into the desert and enjoy some solitude so I could read straight through to the end in a few of the places the book was set. ( )

Author Hamption Sides does his research and weaves together a gripping saga of the American Southwest and the major characters who shaped its history. ( )

This is a great book about the American Southwest and Kit Carson by the author of 'Ghost Soldiers' which I really should review here someday. Blood and Thunder is an exciting read, thoroughly researched and very absorbing. Some of the connections are startling, even if already well known, like that Carson had much to do with the annexation of California to the U.S. Others are simply startling, like the sidelight of Carson's indirect connection to the Mountain Meadows Massacre.
Much of the book concerns the Navajos and the way the United States interacted with them--makes me read Tony Hillerman's mysteries in a whole new light. ( )

Really interesting but mis-named. Should be "Kit Carson's role in the western US expansion". I love reading about Kit Carson but he wasn't the ONLY actor in the west and I was disappointed there wasn't much else. I kinda thought before reading that this book was suppose to be more general in regards to western expansion - maybe I just misread the synopsis. Anyway, it's *mostly* about Kit Carson and some of the people who figured in along side of him. ( )

Well written and well researched biography of Kit Carson, juxtaposed against the Navaho story with the coming of Manifest Destiny Americans in the wake of the Mexican War. Reads fast.

One problem. Sides, like all late 20th century authors and beyond, suffers from historical guilt and seems to place all evil squarely on the white side of the conflict and gloss over or justify any actions by the Navaho nation to big to be ignored. I think a more balanced approach would have served better. In a war that was cruel on both sides and where neither would compromise if it could be avoided. The Americans were more numerous, technologically advanced and better organized, so they won. ( )

The true story of Kit Carson, and how the US really 'won' the west. ( )

Hampton Sides' command of narrative prose makes his exhaustive research accessible and enjoyable. Carson was a hard man to characterize: a lover and admirer of Native Americans, yet responsible for the deaths of thousands of them Sides does a creditable job of making a life-size story out of a larger-than-life figure in the American West. ( )