War and Peace in the West

Peter Cozzens’s The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West (Alfred A. Knopf, $35) is the most comprehensive, insightful synthesis of the conflict between the Western tribes and the United States government and citizens published by a popular New York press in decades. Like William Manchester’s The Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America, 1932-1972, the Maryland author’s brilliant thesis and detailed narrative will sustain the reader through th