With "Custer's Trials," T.J. Stiles accomplishes what few historians bother attempting, and even fewer achieve: a totally immersive reading experience with rich characters, high stakes, suspense, and genuine emotion. The reader sits in the saddle alongside Custer as he charges the Confederate lines at Gettysburg, seethes at Custer as he opposes Reconstruction, and hears the final, desperate gunshots at the Little Bighorn as Custer meets his fate. In the hands of T.J. Stiles, the past is alive.T.J. Stiles writes like no one else. His writing is detailed, powerful, and direct. His greatest talent is to find a short sentence that fully captures a larger idea. Another writer might describe Custer as a brash show-off who was obsessed with large parties, colorful uniforms, and outrageous stunts in a never-ending quest to be the center of attention. To T.J. Stiles, Custer was simply "the exaggerated American." Great stuff.Stiles also does something that few other biographers try: he uses biography to explicitly describe the human experience, as grandiose as that sounds. Custer was, first and foremost, a soldier. There are beautiful passages in this book about what it means to take someone's life, to go to war, and to be lost and confused in the horror of battle. Custer was also a leader of soldiers, and Stiles once again takes time to describe the essence of good leadership, and how Custer fell short of that standard. It is these passages that place Stiles in a league of his own, that elevate this book from mere history to a form of art.Stiles fully acknowledges that Custer is an ass. He portrays Custer as a largely amoral, prissy, and obsessive narcissist. Yet Stiles uses Custer's life to make a statement about the United States of America. Stiles reminds the reader that Custer was a hero for many, embodying the colorful, swashbuckling aspirations of a nation on the rise. Industry was roaring, corporations were growing, and more newspapers and magazines were flying off the presses. The Civil War and Reconstruction were also dramatically altering the country's ideas of law and constitutional rights. America, in many ways, was being reborn. And Americans, in turn, needed to adapt. But George Custer could not. It is this contrast, of the old fashioned Custer and the modernizing nation he fought for, where Stiles adds larger meaning to Custer's life. Custer is contemptible, irritating, and morally compromised, but his life allows the reader to understand deeper truths about America in the 19th century.Unlike so many other histories and biographies, this one sticks with you long after you have read the final sentence. I would give it another five stars if that were an option.