Reviews - An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

1.84k reviews for:

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

4.4 AVERAGE

rebeccahowell711's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional informative medium-paced

musicactfire's review against another edition

4.0

Delivers what it promises. Very well researched, and well weaved to make the complex history relatively easy to follow. Probably doesn’t need to be said but this is not a happy history.... instinctually I kept waiting for it to get better but, uh... I guess it’s not as bad now, but the bad parts were worse than I realized. Good book to supplement the American education system that glossed over (or even just lied about) much of this.

edeneliza's review against another edition

4.25

informative medium-paced

The United States is a country built on top of the backs of others, and the land of indigenous people. An uncaring and violent culture towards indigenous people dominates even to the present day of this country. I lack the words to properly describe the peril of these groups and the trauma of these events, but it weighs on me. This chapter in American history is a vital one to acknowledge and remember. This story is often told without distributing detail and paints the assailants in a bright victorious light. This is the perspective we need to hear and understand.

mr_sosotris's review against another edition

4.75

A fantastic work that synthesizes a great deal of scholarship exploring the treatment of Indigenous peoples at the hand of the American government.

Many of the broad strokes may appear to most everyday readers to be common points that they’ve heard before, but where this book succeeds is in how it draws connections from events throughout history to explore not only horrifying trends of colonialism and genocide, but how those trends are echoed throughout world history. I greatly appreciated how the author draws parallels to other instances of genocide and colonial atrocities, refusing to allow the reader to dismiss the events described herein as “a fluke” or “a one time tragedy that is now thankfully in the past.”

The concerns the author explores are eternally relevant and immediately resonant, and I loved how the author lays the responsibility of advocating for change in the hands of contemporary people, insisting this is a modern problem that has never been resolved no matter how people insist it’s ancient history.

Well-organized, provocative, insightful, and emotionally devastating, this is a must-read. And with the tragedy of the Palestinian genocide playing out even today, the lessons to be learned from this book are eternally relevant and important.