"Fast-paced and highly absorbing." —Wall Street Journal

A magisterial new history of the fierce final chapter of the American Indian Wars, told through the lives of the two most legendary and consequential American Indian leaders, who led Sioux resistance and triumphed at the Battle of Little Bighorn

True West magazine's "Best Nonfiction Book of the Year"

Winner of the Colorado Book Award

Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull: Their names are iconic, their significance in American history undeniable. Together, these two Lakota chiefs, one a fabled warrior and the other a revered holy man, crushed George Armstrong Custer’s vaunted Seventh Cavalry. Yet their legendary victory at the Little Big Horn has overshadowed the rest of their rich and complex lives. Now, based on years of research and drawing on a wealth of previously ignored primary sources, award-winning author Mark Lee Gardner delivers the definitive chronicle of nineteenth-century history, thrillingly told, of these extraordinary Indigenous leaders.

Both Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were born and grew to manhood on the High Plains of the American West, in an era when vast herds of buffalo covered the earth, and when their nomadic people could move freely, following the buffalo and lording their fighting prowess over rival Indian nations. But as idyllic as this life seemed to be, neither man had known a time without whites. Fur traders and government explorers were the first to penetrate Sioux lands, but they were soon followed by a flood of white intruders: Oregon-California Trail travelers, gold seekers, railroad men, settlers, town builders—and Bluecoats. The buffalo population plummeted, disease spread by the white man decimated villages, and conflicts with the interlopers increased.

On June 25, 1876, in the valley of the Little Big Horn, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, and the warriors who were inspired to follow them, fought the last stand of the Sioux, a fierce and proud nation that had ruled the Great Plains for decades. It was their greatest victory, but it was also the beginning of the end for their treasured and sacred way of life. And in the years to come, both Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, defiant to the end, would meet violent—and eerily similar—fates.

An essential new addition to the canon of Indigenous American history and literature of the American West, The Earth Is All That Lasts is a grand saga, both triumphant and tragic, of two fascinating and heroic leaders struggling to maintain the freedom of their people against impossible odds.

A Denver Post Bestseller

A Spur Award Finalist, Best Western Historical Nonfiction

Winner of the John M. Carroll Literary Award

This meticulously researched dual biography reveals:

Two Legendary Leaders: A deep, personal look at the lives of Crazy Horse, the fabled warrior, and Sitting Bull, the revered holy man, who guided their people through an era of monumental change.
A Clash of Cultures: Witness the dramatic end of an era as the nomadic life of the Sioux collides with the relentless westward expansion of settlers, railroads, and the U.S. Army.
The Fading Frontier: Experience life on the High Plains when vast buffalo herds roamed free, and see how that sacred way of life was threatened and ultimately destroyed.
A Legacy of Defiance: Understand the complex and tragic aftermath of the Little Big Horn, and how both iconic leaders met violent, eerily similar fates while struggling to maintain their people’s freedom.