Based on documentary material from historical and anthropological archives in Spain, Mexico, and the United States, the book examines the different ways the Comanche tribes - the Yamparikas, Jupes, Kotsotekas, Quahadas, Penatekas, Tenewas, and Nokonis - organized and reorganized themselves around the changing resource domains of hunting, warfare, trade and diplomacy.

The book presents detailed histories of each of the Comanche tribes and raises larger questions about political processes. What are the origins and fates of political organizations? Why do peoples come together? Why do they disperse? In classical political philosophy, tribes, nations, and ethnic groups have clear, unchanging boundaries; their origins are mythical and unknowable, and their collapse is pathological.

In contrast, using the record of the Comanches, Kavanagh argues that political formation and re-formation not only is normal but frequently ignores existing political and ethnic boundaries.