A disturbing Rashomon of a history. Despite the romantic choice of title, there is nothing romantic or heroic about the title personage, or in fact any person who appears in this history. Everyone's story (and I mean everyone, from the water boys to the laundry women, to the wives and relatives of Chief Gall and Running Bear, with selected dogs, mice and horses thrown in for good measure)-- 
 everyone's story--is told, in no particular order, and everyone comes out badly (except for the animals). This includes not only the prideful, confused and egotistical American conquerors, messengers of fear and greed, by turns half drunk or brave, and the bloodthirsty press supporting them back on the home front, and not only the pursued and abused native Americans--a.k.a. aborigines--who lashed out at the soldiers and settlers with all the ruthless hatred they could muster, but also the author, whose careful research is occasionally marred by his abusive, hectoring tone, and his lack of interest in conventional narrative. 
 There are so many facts both sublime and mundane, so many versions of events (as many as there are witnesses) set forth in the author's stream of consciousness approach that the reader comes out feeling both informed and yet uninformed--you have some facts, but more than one version of facts. And since the facts are told once, then, hours, or days of reading later, revisited by a different witness, it is difficult to feel a sense of certainty. What is left as certain are only the horrific abuses by both sides, each in their way justifiable if viewed in a particular context, but if viewed from this distance, it seems mostly just sad and frustrating. Even the author seems to become depressed at the blatant stupidity of it all: 
 "It is said that during the gestation of Remembrance of Things Past the author gradually became convinced of a frightening psychological truth: Contrary to popular belief, people do not learn by experience. Instead, they respond to a particular stimulus in a predictable way, and this repeatedly. Again, again, again, and again this undeviating, compulsive response may be observed. A brevet or a coffin. A yellow sash or six feet of Mexican soil. A grade or a grave. Again, again, again, and again, generation after generation, the dismal message reappears like writing on the wall."