Perhaps no Indian leader of the mid-nineteenth century was as well known in his time as the great Lakota Sioux Red Cloud. Although his fame later was eclipsed by that of the legendary heroes who crushed Custer's Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn-Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse-Red Cloud's active leadership of his people, and his representation of the Sioux in vital negotiations with the U.S. government, survived the demise of the other leaders by many years.Red Cloud was not born to leadership. He earned it. In his early years he gained a reputation for fierceness as a warrior and as a tactician against both whites and other Indian tribes. And in his middle years, his leadership against the U.S. Army in the Powder River country, his forcing the closure of the Bozeman Trail, and his strong pressure to negotiate the favorable outcome of the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868 made him the preeminent chief among the Sioux. In his later years, Red Cloud was an intermediary for his people in their dealings with the U.S. government. Although his motives at times were questioned, he steadfastly resisted encroachments on Sioux land during the reservation period, and he consistently protested the pressure by market oriented whites to impose an agrarian economy on a people who had never farmed. Red Cloud's passionate belief in the values of his culture prevented him from acting as a culture broker; nevertheless, he remained an important figure of the Gilded Age. Imbued with the new social and environmental historiography, this modern biography by Robert W. Larson is a valuable contribution to Sioux history and to our understanding of Indian-white relationships in the nineteenth century as well as political aspects of the Indian-white dialogue.

Why did New Mexico remain so long in political limbo before being admitted to the Union as a state? Combining extensive research and a clear and well-organised style, Robert W. Larson provides the answers to this question in a thorough and comprehensive account of the territory's extraordinary sixty-six-year struggle for statehood. This book is no mere chronology of political moves, however. It is the history of a turbulent frontier state, sweeping into the current almost every colourful character of the territory. Not only politicians but ranchers, outlaws, soldiers, newspapermen, Indians, merchants, lawyers, and people from every walk of life were involved. This is a book for the reader who is interested in any aspect of southwestern territorial history.

Few who appreciate the visual arts or the American Southwest can behold the masterpieces "Sangre de Cristo Mountains "or "Haystack, Taos Valley, 1927 "or "Bend in the River, 1941 "and come away without a vivid image burned into memory. The creator of these and many other depictions of the Southwest and its people was Ernest L. Blumenschein, cofounder of the famous Taos art colony. This insightful, comprehensive biography examines the character and life experiences that made Blumenschein one of the foremost artists of the twentieth century.

Robert W. Larson and Carole B. Larson begin their life of "Blumy" with his Ohio childhood and trace his development as an artist from early study in Cincinnati, New York City, and Paris through his first career as a book and magazine illustrator. Blumenschein and artist Bert G. Phillips discovered the budding art community of Taos, New Mexico, in 1898. In 1915 the two along with Joseph Henry Sharp, E. Irving Couse, and other like-minded artists organized the Taos Society of Artists, famous for preferring American subjects over European themes popular at the time.

Leaving illustration work behind, Blumenschein sought a distinctive place in his American homeland and in fine-art painting. He moved with his family to Taos in 1919 and began his long career as a figurative and landscape painter, becoming prominent among American artists for his Pueblo Indian figures and stunning southwestern landscapes.

Robert Larson calls Blumenschein a "transformational artist," trained classically but drawing to a limited degree on abstract representation. Placing Blumy's life in the context of World War I, the Great Depression, and other national and world events, the authors show how an artistic genius turned a fascination with the people, light, and color of New Mexico into a body of work of lasting significance to the international art world.

Called the "Fighting Cock of the Sioux" by U.S. soldiers, Hunkpapa warrior Gall was a great Lakota chief who, along with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, resisted efforts by the U.S. government to annex the Black Hills. It was Gall, enraged by the slaughter of his family, who led the charge across Medicine Tail Ford to attack Custer's main forces on the other side of the Little Bighorn.

Robert W. Larson now sorts through contrasting views of Gall, to determine the real character of this legendary Sioux. This first-ever scholarly biography also focuses on the actions Gall took during his final years on the reservation, unraveling his last fourteen years to better understand his previous forty.

Gall, Sitting Bull's most able lieutenant, accompanied him into exile in Canada. Once back on the reservation, though, he broke with his chief over Ghost Dance traditionalism and instead supported Indian agent James McLaughlin's more realistic agenda. Tracing Gall's evolution from a fearless warrior to a representative of his people, Larson shows that Gall contended with shifting political and military conditions while remaining loyal to the interests of his tribe.

Filling many gaps in our understanding of this warrior and his relationship with Sitting Bull, this engaging biography also offers new interpretations of the Little Bighorn that lay to rest the contention that Gall was "Custer's Conqueror." "Gall: Lakota War Chief" broadens our understanding of both the man and his people.