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Searching... Stillwater Public Library | 970.OO497 ECK | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
A biography of the famous Shawnee describes Tecumseh's plan to amalgamate all North American tribes into one people, his role as statesman and military strategist, and his death in the Battle of Thames. 35,500 first printing.
Author Notes
Allan W. Eckert was born in Buffalo, New York on January 30, 1931. He served in the United States Air Force and attended the University of Dayton and Ohio State University. He was a historian, naturalist, novelist, poet, screenwriter and playwright. He wrote over 40 books during his lifetime including A Time of Terror: The Great Dayton Flood, Wild Season, The Silent Sky, The Frontiersmen, Wilderness Empire, The Conquerors, and A Sorrow in Our Heart: The Life of Tecumseh, which were all nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in literature. He received the Newbery Honor Book Award for Incident at Hawk's Hill. He also wrote almost all of the scripts for television's Wild Kingdom and adapted The Frontiersmen into the play Tecumseh! He died of prostate cancer on July 7, 2011 at the age of 80.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Though there are many biographies of the great Shawnee chief Tecumseh (1768-1813), this effort by historical novelist Eckert ( The Frontiersman ) may spark new interest--and controversy--with its ``hidden dialogue'' technique. After more than 25 years of research, the author felt free to recreate Tecumseh's conversations and thoughts in what proves to be an entertaining blend of fact and fiction. The orator and organizer's life was shaped by his tribe's tragic confrontation with westward-moving whites, who encroached on Native American lands along the Ohio River valley. His long struggle against this dispossession led Tecumseh to create a historic confederacy of tribes, but this crowning achievement was destroyed by his own brother at Tippecanoe in 1811. Eckert's dialogue is clunky, yet his colorful evocation of this seminal American figure will be more broadly accessible than are drier, more factual accounts. ( Feb. ) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A spirited but misdirected stab at a definitive biography of the great Shawnee warrior, from prolific historian and novelist Eckert, whose six-volume nonfiction The Winning of America series (Twilight of Empire, Gateway to Empire, etc.) paved the way for this epic. Employing what he terms ``narrative biography'' as a touchstone (and as an apparent euphemism for poetic license), Eckert embarks on a quest for the real Tecumseh, seeking a life buried beneath countless legends and tales. The result is a mammoth account of a remarkable American from the spectacular moment of his birth--concurrent with the appearance of a brilliant shooting star- -to his sudden death in the Battle of Thames in 1813, an event described in more than 40 different ways by ``eyewitnesses.'' Along with the portrait of a man of keen insight and ability--a natural leader who eschewed the role of chief but who sought tirelessly to unite all tribes in a pan-Indian movement--emerges a rich tapestry of Native American society in the Ohio region during Tecumseh's time. The Indian leader and his family, especially his brother, the prophet Tenskwatawa, figured dramatically in the growing violence along the frontier as white settlers swarmed across the Appalachians onto Indian lands. By emphasizing the greatness of Tecumseh, however, Eckert minimizes the significance of tribal unification as a wider phenomenon and the role of spiritual leaders in firing that movement, to the extent that, for instance, Tenskwatawa is depicted as a sniveling conniver achieving renown largely through his brother's generosity. A biography that succeeds better as fiction. Astoundingly detailed but ambitious to a fault, in its interpretative zeal it strays from, or at least embellishes, the historical record to the point of being suspect.
Booklist Review
An impressive narrative biography of Tecumseh, the remarkable Shawnee warrior and statesman who succeeded in organizing a group of disparate tribes into a cohesive confederacy of nations in order to repel white settlement in the Ohio valley in the early nineteenth century. Eckert places his subject firmly within his proper social and historical context by providing a tremendous amount of meticulously researched and authenticated background information, including illuminating details of tribal life and Shawnee culture. Tecumseh's familial ties, especially his fateful relationship with his envious and unstable younger brother, are also analyzed. What emerges is a reverent portrait of a heroic native American whose recorded deeds and accomplishments actually eclipse his embroidered legend. The author has succeeded in presenting historical fact within a dramatic framework that will appeal to wide range of readers. ~--Margaret Flanagan
