In 1876 Lakota and Cheyenne warriors annihilated Custer's Seventh
Cavalry at Little Bighorn. Three years later and half a world
away, a British force was wiped out by Zulu warriors at Isandhlwana
in South Africa. In both cases the total defeat of regular army
troops by forces regarded as undisciplined barbarian tribesmen
stunned an imperial nation. Although the similarities between the
two frontier encounters have long been noted, James O. Gump's book
The Dust Rose Like Smoke is the first to scrutinize them in a
comparative context. "This study issues a challenge to American
exceptionalism," he writes. Viewing both episodes as part of a
global pattern of intensified conflict in the latter 1800s
resulting from Western domination over a vast portion of the globe,
Gump's comparative study persuasively traces the origins and
aftermath of both episodes. He examines the complicated ways in
which Lakota and Zulu leadership sought to protect indigenous
interests while Western leadership calculated their subjugation to
imperial authority. The second edition includes a new preface
from the author, revised and expanded chapters, and an interview
with Leonard Little Finger (great-great-grandson of Ghost Dance
leader Big Foot), whose story connects Wounded Knee and Nelson
Mandela.