Rach's Reading Club 2024

The Eagle and the Raven

For my first book set in North America, I read James Michener's book, The Eagle and the Raven . It's a short book (plus it even has pictures) and it reads rather quickly.

It's a sort of dual biography of Sam Houston, the Eagle, and Santa Ana, the Raven. These two were up against each other in the war between the United States and Mexico.

Michener paints both men as extremely unusual personalities. Houston spent a great deal of his life among the American Indians and had a reputation for being crass and inappropriate. Santa Ana is painted as a violent military leader who often changed alliances between the Spanish and the new Mexican government rather quickly. There is also an account of how Santa Ana destroyed a town and forced the women to "make tortillas" for the soldiers. Michener then includes a footnote stating that most historians believe "make tortillas" was euphemism for rape.

Essentially, the book alternates between the lives of these two men and it's mostly interesting reading, but if I had to criticize the book, it would be to pint out that the two never really meet. In fact, in the last chapter, Michener points out that historians are divided on whether either of these two men knew the other existed.

It almost makes me think that these two biographies don't really belong in the same book, but again, it was an enjoyable read.