Volume 44, Number 16 · October 23, 1997
Broken Promises
By Larry McMurtry
The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic
by Angie Debo
University of Oklahoma Press, 314 pp., $15.95 (paper)
And Still the Waters Run: The Betrayal of the Five Civilized Tribes
by Angie Debo
Princeton University Press, 417 pp., $16.95 (paper)
The Road to Disappearance: A History of the Creek Indians
by Angie Debo
University of Oklahoma Press, 399 pp., $18.95 (paper)
Geronimo: The Man, His Time, His Place
by Angie Debo
University of Oklahoma Press, 500 pp., $19.95 (paper)
A History of the Indians of the United States
by Angie Debo
University of Oklahoma Press, 450 pp., $18.95 (paper)
Historians who devote their careers to the study of institutions—even Maitland or Namier—never enjoy the broad popularity of the chroniclers of conquest and empire (Prescott, Parkman, Macaulay, Churchill). Most people would rather read about the Goths at the gates of Rome, or Napoleon watching Moscow burn, or Kitchener at Khartoum, or Custer at the Little Bighorn, than follow Maitland as he patiently separates common law from canon law, or absorb Namier's stately reconstruction of the parliament of George III. The great historians of institutions don't scorn popularity, but the law, or parliament, come to exert such a fascination for them that they don't have time to worry about much except their charters, their pedigrees, and their lists.
Review, 4467 words
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