Allan W. Eckert is an expert chronicler of America’s turbulent frontier history. He has written a number of books that detail the western expansion and in Twilight of Empire he focuses on the life of War Chief Black Hawk who strove to hold back the white people from claiming the ancestral home of the Fox and Sac tribes. This homeland was the rich land of the northern Mississippi River that was destined to become known as the state of Illinois.

This is a book that I needed to read with two bookmarks, one to mark my reading place and another to allow me to follow the author’s amplification notes at the back of the book. Each event and detail has been painstakingly researched. Every character in this sweeping epic is drawn from actual history and their every action actually happened. Twilight of Empire is part of this author’s Winning of America series which I had read all but this book quite a few years ago. I was very happy to have found this book at a second hand store so that I could complete my read of this fascinating series.

Black Hawk was an extraordinary man, he had a life-long hatred for the Americans, who once burned his home village. As settlers and soldiers arrive in this contested land, a savage conflict is ignited. This non-fiction historical read makes for a vivid, exciting and interesting reading experience that is made all the more dramatic by the knowledge that all of this actually happened. ( )

this is a sad, sad, book. The final flare-up of Indian fighting in the "Old Northwest". We even get to see Abraham Lincoln in a early adventure. Black Hawk and his tribe of Fox and Saux indians are hounded to their eventual destruction by the Indian-War Machine. directed from the east, and having no trouble at all with this small people. After this, there's not much left of Eckert's grand narrative, and we can get ready for the Civil war, if we are looking for thrills. It's a book abut a lost cause. The eventual triumph of William Henry Harrison blows no trumpets for me. ( )