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.