Three new books describe far-flung societies — from the Native tribes of North America to the caliphates of Eurasia — that have made war and sustained their conquests.
UNC historian Wayne Lee’s new book, Indigenous Warfare in Eastern North America, 1500-1800 (University of North Carolina Press) was featured in this roundup from The New York Times.
In his new book, Lee argues that the fluid, Native American style of war was quite alien to the European soldiers who encountered it. Tribes like the Tuscarora and the Cherokee avoided battles and conventional sieges, instead carrying out what Lee calls “conquest by harassment” — dispersed campaigns of ambushes and raids, which could be sustained for years. They often traveled light, subsisting on parched corn supplemented by occasional hunting, and they fought in loose formations that rewarded individual initiative and marksmanship.