The Book Prize Index

The Killing Of Crazy Horse

Thomas Powers

With the Great Sioux War as background and context, and drawing on many new materials, Thomas Powers establishes what really happened in the dramatic final months and days of Crazy Horse’s life. He was the greatest Indian warrior of the nineteenth century, whose victory over General Custer at the battle of Little Bighorn in 1876 was the worst defeat ever inflicted on the frontier army. But after surrendering to federal troops, Crazy Horse was killed in custody for reasons which have been fiercely debated for more than a century. The Killing of Crazy Horse pieces together the story behind this official killing.

BiographyBiography · high confidenceBiography81 signalsLlm Classifier: Biography -> BiographyGoogle Books: Biography & Autobiography -> Memoir & AutobiographyOpen Library: Biography -> BiographyMilitary BiographyPresidency & Executive PowerCrime, Policing & Violence

Award History

1 wins · 2 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History2010Co-winnerSecondary source
National Book Critics Circle Award for BiographyMajor2010FinalistSecondary source
View all award history (2)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    • Crazy Horse90%
    Show lower-confidence suggestions

    These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.

    • General Custer55%

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

    These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.

    • Little Bighorn60%

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    The book pieces together the story behind the official killing of Crazy Horse in custody after his surrender to federal troops, using new materials to show what really happened in his final months and days.

    Model confidence 60%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    35 / 100 academic

    Serious trade

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 62%.