Reviews

“Mixed with exciting set pieces—battles, treaty negotiations, oratory over whose rightful land it was—and bolstered by impressive archival research, Sharfstein’s story unfolds as a swift-moving narrative of tragic inevitability. A superb, densely detailed complement to William Vollmann’s poetic/fictional treatment The Dying Grass (2015), of compelling interest to any student of 19th-century American history.”
–Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Sharfstein (law, history, Vanderbilt Univ.; The Invisible Line) examines the causes and consequences of the Nez Perce War of 1877, using the intertwined stories of Gen. Oliver O. Howard (1830–1909) and Chief Joseph (1840–1904) to frame this thoroughly researched work. The author places this confrontation between Native peoples and white settlers within the context of broader events of the 19th century. Howard, a tireless champion of freed slaves, was tasked with convincing the Nez Perce to move onto reservations assigned to them by a series of treaties. When tensions flared, Joseph and Howard attempted to resolve the conflict, first peacefully and eventually through war. Sharfstein provides considerable detail about skilled and heroic Nez Perce fighters and families, who bested Howard’s larger forces at many turns before their final defeat. The story is filled with considerable irony, as men seeking a peaceful resolution were drawn into deadly conflict. Among the many extraordinary stories here is that of C.E.S. Wood, whose participation in this war eventually led him to a life devoted to helping the disadvantaged. VERDICT Highly recommended for general readers as well as those interested in the history of Native peoples.”
–Library Journal (starred review)

“The story of the Nez Perce leader known by whites as Chief Joseph has been told many times before. Usually Joseph and his band are viewed as tragic heroes as they resisted efforts to force them from their beloved homeland in northeastern Oregon and then defied the U.S. Army in a heroic but failed effort to escape to Canada. History professor Sharfstein reinforces Joseph’s stature as a figure of courage, dignity, and moral rectitude. But he also shows Joseph in a more nuanced light as the leader strives to negotiate with the U.S. government while navigating the tricky waters of intra-tribal politics. What makes Sharfstein’s account unusual is the equal focus he places upon army officer Howard, who became both an admirer and nemesis of Joseph. . . . When Joseph and his band bolted, Howard had to lead and coordinate the pursuit. Sharfstein has provided a scrupulously researched and detailed revisiting of one of the most moving and saddest sagas in American history.”
–Booklist (starred review)

“Sharfstein writes with great skill and due regard for the sad, human elements of the U.S. effort to hem in and defeat a defiant people whose great leader remains an example of moral courage and bearing. No other book better brings to the fore the qualities of Chief Joseph or better explores the dilemma of his pursuer, Gen. O.O. Howard, a major personage of Reconstruction whom Joseph frustrated at every turn. Moreover, Sharfstein dug deeper into the sources than any predecessor and unearthed new dimensions of this particular history. This is in many ways a splendid book.”
–Publishers Weekly

“In his penetrating new book Thunder in the Mountains, Daniel J. Sharfstein shows how the meaning of freedom was not only contested in the South after the Civil War but extended all the way to the Pacific Northwest….Sharfstein’s account not only makes for absorbing reading; it adds immeasurably to our understanding of the complicated, interwoven lives of those who fought for “progress” east and west….Those who know little about General Howard, other than that he was a founder of Howard University, will be especially interested in following his story to the end.”
–Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University

“One of the epic tales of American history, rendered by a master storyteller. Daniel Sharfstein breathes new life into the fascinating figures at the heart of the Nez Perce War.”
— Karl Jacoby, author of The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire

“Beautifully wrought and impossible to put down, Daniel Sharfstein’s Thunder in the Mountains chronicles with compassion and grace that resonant past we should never forget.”
— Brenda Wineapple, author of Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848-1877“Daniel Sharfstein offers a searing account of an American tragedy: how Oliver Otis Howard, a champion for the rights of freed slaves, became an architect of the dispossession and subjugation of Native people. This beautifully written book will change the way readers think about the era of Civil War and Reconstruction.”
— Ari Kelman, author of A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling Over the Memory of Sand Creek

“Revelatory and riveting.”
— Gregory P. Downs, University of California–Davis, author of After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War