Robert M. Utley

Robert Marshall Utley (October 31, 1929 – June 7, 2022) was an American author and historian who wrote sixteen books on the history of the American West. He was a chief historian for the National Park Service.

Much of his writing deals with the United States Army in the West, especially in its confrontations with the Indian tribes. He wrote: :the frontier army was a conventional military force trying to control, by conventional military methods, a people that did not behave like conventional enemies and, indeed, quite often were not enemies at all. This is the most difficult of all military assignments, whether in Africa, Asia, or the American West.

The Western History Association annually gives out the Robert M. Utley Book Award for the best book published on the military history of the frontier and western North America. Provided by Wikipedia