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Nathaniel Philbrick is normally associated with nautical history, so it might be something of a surprise that in "The Last Stand" he has chronicled the Battle of the Little Bighorn, a military event that took place about as far from the ocean as you can get. But, it might be remembered that a large part of his "Mayflower" book was focused on the violent relations between the Pilgrims and Indians and on the slightly later King Phillip's War. Here in "The Last Stand", the author has returned to the subject of white-Indian relations and has created a vivid, engaging book. Philbrick's "The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn" quite naturally invites comparison with 2008's "A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn" by James Donovan, about the same subject. Although both volumes present lengthy, quite comprehensive narratives, they do differ significantly. Donovan's book takes a more straightforward approach, while Philbrick's is more consciously "literary" in style, filled with numerous colorful incidents almost cinematic in impact. Additionally, Philbrick's "The Last Stand" devotes somewhat more attention to the Indian side of the story than does Donovan's volume. Which book is "better"? The answer to that undoubtedly depends on the reader and his/her needs and expectations. Philbrick's volume is perhaps the more suited for random browsing or reading a chapter at a time, while Donovan's is probably better suited for focused, prolonged study. I personally enjoyed both Philbrick's and Donovan's volumes. Both books are representative of a much more balanced, even-handed approach to the Little Bighorn battle than had been characteristic of the past. Originally, accounts tended to overly laud Custer and his soldiers as peerless representatives of Civilization, done to death by a savage, scarcely human foe. By the latter part of the Twentieth century, however, it had become commonplace to reverse roles, depicting Custer and his men as mindless murderers and the Indians as peaceful, innocent victims. We now seem to have finally reached a point, as demonstrated in both Philbrick's "The Last Stand" and also Donovan's "A Terrible Glory", where the participants on both sides can be depicted as three-dimensional, realistic blends of virtue and flaw, neither demons nor angels. Any serious student of the Little Bighorn battle - I count myself among them - can find elements in Philbrick's book (as in Donovan's) with which to disagree. The events are complex enough and the evidence sufficiently murky that this is inevitable. I cannot say that I learned anything wholly new here, but then again I've been studying the Little Bighorn battle for more than 40 years. An intelligent general reader, previously uninformed about the details, can come away from "The Last Stand" with a good understanding of the events and the people involved on both sides. If that reader should wish to proceed further with studying the battle, Philbrick supplies detailed notes and source lists.