Empire of the Summer Moon

S.C. Gwynne's 2010 Pulitzer finalist — tracing the rise and fall of the Comanche empire and the story of Cynthia Ann Parker (captured as a child) and her son Quanah Parker (the last great Comanche chief) — the most widely read account of the Comanche.

Creates the popular account of the Comanche empire — Empire of the Summer Moon establishes that the Comanche were the most powerful military force on the Southern Plains for a century and a half, and that their defeat required the systematic destruction of their horse culture and buffalo supply; the Parker family story (white captive mother, half-Comanche chief son) frames the history humanly.