The dust rose like smoke
Subtitle: the subjugation of the Zulu and the Sioux
By: James O. Gump.
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Lincoln
Language: eng
Number of pages: 178
Subjects: Dakota Indians -- History -- Cross-cultural studies; Dakota Indians -- Wars -- Cross-cultural studies; Dakota Indians -- Government relations -- Cross-cultural studies; Zulu (African people) -- History -- Cross-cultural studies; Zulu (African people) -- Wars -- Cross-cultural studies; Zulu (African people) -- Government relations -- Cross-cultural studies
Description: In 1876 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors annihilated Custer's Seventh Cavalry on the 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.

The similarities between the two frontier encounters have long been noted, but James O. Gump 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 dominion over a vast portion of the globe, he persuasively traces the comparisons in their origins and aftermath.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [161]-171) and index.