The Last Stand Nathaniel Philbrick (Bodley Head, £20) American history is studded with legends. foremost among them is the battle of the Little Bighorn, in which Custer and his Seventh Cavalry were ambushed by Indian tribes led by Sitting Bull. In recreating this desperate battle, Philbrick portrays the contrast between two societies after the civil war and as the Old West began to fade — the colonial ambitions of hardy pioneers, hungry for land, and the traditional values of native Indians seeking to defend the rights of their ancestors.

The contrast goes further in the personalities of those engaged in this unforgiving campaign. Custer saw himself as the “dashing ever-gallant dragoon”, a true prodigy of war, while Sitting Bull embraced the hope of peace even as the Sioux and Cheyenne surrounded the cavalrymen in their last stand. While the bell tolled for Custer in the Black Hills on that fateful day in 1876, it also sounded the death knell for the Indians, with Sitting Bull ultimately joining Buffalo Bill’s circus. Philbrick’s account of the battle itself is monumental, but it is his gifted observations that make this a great book.