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4.4 AVERAGE
4.4 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Racism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Mass/school shootings, Religious bigotry, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, War
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death, Drug abuse, Hate crime, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Classism
difficult but rewarding! emotionally difficult for obvious reasons, and intellectually difficult for someone like me who has not taken an economics class since high school and has little to no knowledge of how land sales and land grants work. sometimes i felt like dunbar-ortiz was expecting the reader to have a certain knowledge base that i did not have, and i ended up writing a lot of very confused notes in the margins. was also often confused by the skipping back and forth in time, but i see why it was written that way. i was very very pleased by the suggested readings portion in the back! will definitely be checking those out. this is a really good overview i think, and i really learned a lot and feel like i understand a lot of things about this country more. another book that opens your third eye i think
informative
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
This book does such a good job at emphasizing how the settler-colonialism that founded the US and other North American countries provides the template for the modern US global colonialism (like, truly didn't know that the military calls the places they're fighting in "Indian Country" or "in-country" to designate that they're fighting in a place hostile to their existence). I also like that this book emphasizes that indigenous peoples in North America had thriving cultures and society that were systematically destroyed by European powers and their settler-colonial state descendants. And again, the emphasis on how the desire to expand and kill native people has its roots in the very foundation of our nation and that settler-colonialism is the US's ongoing project was just a really valuable framework to understanding the state of the world today.
It is a very expansive history book, and it covers over 400 years of history in under 350 pages. There isn't a lot of time to get into detail about all of the events covered here, and I liked that Dunbar-Ortiz emphasizes that this is an introduction to this history, and that you should go deeper on your own terms.
It is a very expansive history book, and it covers over 400 years of history in under 350 pages. There isn't a lot of time to get into detail about all of the events covered here, and I liked that Dunbar-Ortiz emphasizes that this is an introduction to this history, and that you should go deeper on your own terms.
informative
slow-paced
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
There is a special place in hell for Andrew Jackson. I mean, there’s so many more people who also deserve a spot, but especially him.
This honestly should be required reading in schools. Growing up in the US, I learned vaguely about the indigenous people of this country, but always through the lens of manifest destiny and American exceptionalism. Over the years, that mindset has been gradually broken down, and this book completely shattered it. What the early colonizers did (and what we continue to do) is absolutely despicable and my mind simply cannot grasp the mental gymnastics required to justify literal genocide.
This honestly should be required reading in schools. Growing up in the US, I learned vaguely about the indigenous people of this country, but always through the lens of manifest destiny and American exceptionalism. Over the years, that mindset has been gradually broken down, and this book completely shattered it. What the early colonizers did (and what we continue to do) is absolutely despicable and my mind simply cannot grasp the mental gymnastics required to justify literal genocide.
Upended a lot of subtle assumptions created by family history, educational system, so many books.
informative
reflective
medium-paced