The Comanche Empire

What Hacker News says

1. AlotOfReadingJun 2026
   "Writing" is a tricky term. Indigenous groups in what's now the US had property records, laws, and symbolically represented stories that could be read by others. What they didn't have was a system of symbols that can fully encode human speech (and vice versa). The latter is the typical definition of "writing" and it's not required to have the former.

   On an unrelated note, Gwynne's book is fine as a fantasy story, but it's very badly regarded from the perspective of narrative history. Hämäläinen's Comanche Empire is a much better book arguing a largely similar position. Don't take that as applying to later books by the same author, sadly.

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2. mooredsJun 2023
   If you are interested in learning more about Comanches, can't recommend "The Comanche Empire" highly enough: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300151176/the-comanche-e...
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3. wswopeFeb 2022
   One of the books cited in the article, The Comanche Empire [1], absolutely changed my reading of Blood Meridian. It gives a lot of insight into the political and economic state of Texas/Mexico/New Mexico in the 1800s, and highlights how well McCarthy understood the history of he was writing about. Highly recommended to any fans of history + Blood Meridian.

   [1] https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300151176/comanche-empir...

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4. mooredsDec 2021
   I really really enjoyed "The Comanche Empire" https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300151176/comanche-empir...

   It took a long time to get through (very dense, academic) but was a sprawling look at a powerful indigenous culture that I knew nothing about.

   Plus, it was enlightening and a bit foreboding to learn how an empire could be at the very height of its power and then, through circumstance, climate, demographics, and imperial expansion be exhausted and destroyed in essentially a decade.

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5. eastbayjakeFeb 2015
   The Comanche Empire (2009) is an excellent history on this subject. The author argues that the Comanches were an imperial power like the Spanish, French, and American forces they battled -- and like the Americans, also a nation enriched by slavery and slave trading.

   Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Comanche-Empire-Series-Western-History...

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6. mooredsJun 2023
   Loved Empire of the Summer Moon. Totally different kind of book, far more accessible than The Comanche Empire with more narrative and a fascinating storyline.

   The Comanche Empire is more of a history textbook.

   IIRC, I found The Comanche Empire by looking at the bibliography of Empire of the Summer Moon.

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