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4.4 AVERAGE
4.4 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
informative
fast-paced
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
I knew going into reading this that my history education intentionally is designed to remove most connects of indigenous genocide that was crucial for the U.S' global success; that being said, I was aghast at how much was intentionally erased from public education.
This historic textbook does a strong job at creating a narrative through the timeline of US history, focusing on critical spaces, such as Reconstruction Era and Post-WWll reservation desecration. I found it particularly helpful that the structure was broken up by event and what took place, rather than solo-standing chapters for broader instances in history.
The cruelty that this book reveals that white colonizers, ancestors of mine and yours, possibly, put me to tears on multiple occasions. I finished this book with a newfound sense of disgust towards the selectivity that our history is taught to us and how intentional everything is. This is one of the first federally banned books in the US (as of March , 2025) and I will be grabbing my own copy (I read this first as a library book).
And I think everyone who has taken some sort of U.S History class in their life will be ill-equipped for critical thinking and, on a broader stance, ill-prepared to combat the rising fascist front occuring in the country at this time without reading this in addition to what was review for us to learn in the first place.
This historic textbook does a strong job at creating a narrative through the timeline of US history, focusing on critical spaces, such as Reconstruction Era and Post-WWll reservation desecration. I found it particularly helpful that the structure was broken up by event and what took place, rather than solo-standing chapters for broader instances in history.
The cruelty that this book reveals that white colonizers, ancestors of mine and yours, possibly, put me to tears on multiple occasions. I finished this book with a newfound sense of disgust towards the selectivity that our history is taught to us and how intentional everything is. This is one of the first federally banned books in the US (as of March , 2025) and I will be grabbing my own copy (I read this first as a library book).
And I think everyone who has taken some sort of U.S History class in their life will be ill-equipped for critical thinking and, on a broader stance, ill-prepared to combat the rising fascist front occuring in the country at this time without reading this in addition to what was review for us to learn in the first place.
informative
slow-paced
I had to read this for school, and usually I read and rate books based on my enjoyment so that's why the rating isn't higher. I wouldn't have picked this to read myself, but it was definitely an important read.
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
This should be required reading to learn about how current day America began from the indigenous perspective. Learned many things for the first time and learned accurate retellings of events I knew about. Took me a while because non-fiction does but absolutely worth the time.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
dark
emotional
informative
medium-paced
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
It’s hard for me to give star ratings to non-fiction books, unless I rate them according to their research and resulting conclusions. Because otherwise, this book recounts American atrocity after American atrocity, and of course, that is the point but that doesn’t make for an enjoyable or easy read. And it shouldn’t. The author pulls no punches, and she shouldn’t. After all, the history of this United States is one bathed in blood and money… particularly, tragically, indigenous blood.
I think I wanted more of an indigenous history, than a mind-numbing whirlwind of horrors—but I’ll look for the latter elsewhere. This is, after all, titled a history of the United States… as it relates to its indigenous population, so prepare yourself. In that, its intended purpose, it certainly does its job of laying the full scope of US horrors bare, and in its referenced parts detailing historical facts, it seemed to do a great job. In particular, the book does a great job reiterating the horrific history of white settlers and their perpetual genocide against Native Americans. Furthermore, it does a fantastic job undermining the mythos of manifest destiny, and the rugged American exceptionalism that fueled it.
The problem is that I found at least two claims that were patently false, and if I find those and then I do research to try to see if perhaps my knowledge is wrong and then I find out that I am indeed correct… it makes me wonder what else I may have missed. Now, if you’re one of the two people who read my reviews, you know I’m as woke as can be—and always willing to wake up further, with evidence, and while these potential fallacies don’t negate the overall and overarching truth of the book, they do exist, and I’ll post my receipts further down in my miscellaneous musings, if you’re interested.
Overall, this is an excellent contribution to one’s US history bookshelf, just maybe not one that should be your only book on US / indigenous relations.
I mostly listened to the audiobook and supplemented with the paperback. Below, I’ve included random thoughts and quotes that stood out to me as well as my fact checking notes, but here ends my official review.
End of official review and begin of random notes/musings/quotes:
“The affirmation of democracy requires the denial of colonialism, but denying it does not make it go away.”
During Washington’s presidency, the US government made money off of land speculation as they stole it from the Indians in the Ohio territory. — 15% or less. The book assert, “the sale of confiscated land was the primary revenue source for the new government.”
“Conditions for statehood would be achieved when the settlers outnumbered the indigenous population” is her assertion regarding the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, but this is also incorrect. I checked and double checked that there is no such language, and while this is what would happen as a result of the required 60,000 people coming into a territory in order to turn it into a state, it is not a requirement of the actual law.
Boarding schools, based on fort Marion prison(!)
Turner’s Frontier Thesis asserts that a “ new frontier was needed to fill the ideological and spiritual vacuum created by the completion of settler colonialism.” so the country turned to the Cold War and international “frontiers.”
“Violence directed systematically against noncombatants through irregular means, from the start, has been essential part of American’s way of war.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide
Minor: Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, Colonisation
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
This book opened like that one viral video of someone oversharing their family trauma lol
On a more serious note.. The "firsting and lasting" comment was interesting. I've been thinking about it ever since I heard it. It's very present even nowadays. Following the corn was another interesting aspect.
On a more serious note.. The "firsting and lasting" comment was interesting. I've been thinking about it ever since I heard it. It's very present even nowadays. Following the corn was another interesting aspect.