Ordered to hold an abandoned U.S. Army post, John Dunbar found himself alone, beyond the edge of civilization. Set in 1863, the novel follows Lieutenant John Dunbar on a magical journey from the ravages of the American Civil War to the far reaches of the American frontier, a frontier he naively wants to see "before it is gone". His posting to a desolate and deserted outpost is the point of contact with the lords of the southern plains... the indigenous people known as the Comanche.

Lieutenant Dunbar finds himself intrigued by what to him is the exotic and alien culture of the buffalo-hunting people of the plains. A simple desire to know more about his neighbors ignites a great adventure of transformation that culminates with the emergence of a different kind of man... a man called Dances With Wolves.

"It is now 1874, 11 years after Dunbar deserted from the army to live among the Comanche. He has married Stands with a Fist, the captive white woman raised by Indians, and they have three children. Dunbar has forsworn the white man's ways and is accepted as Dances with Wolves, a full-fledged Comanche warrior. These are hard times for the Plains Indians, however, as the advance of the white man results in war, misery and a gloomy future. When a party of white rangers attacks his village and kidnaps his wife and youngest child, Dances with Wolves goes after them in a wild attempt at rescue. Alongside the tale of Dances with Wolves's personal turmoil, this novel more forcefully tells of the conflicts among the Indians regarding whether to fight the white man or to make peace.Raids, ambushes, atrocities and bitterness on both sides can have only one conclusion, despite an Indian peace delegation that goes to Washington, D.C., to meet the 'Great White Father'. This novel focuses less on Dances with Wolves and much more on the confused plight of the Indians, who cannot understand the white man's greed, duplicity and brutality."