Scan barcode
A review by grete_rachel_howland
We Are the Land: A History of Native California by William J Bauer, Damon B Akins
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.25
In the vein of "Lies My Teacher Told Me" and "A People's History of the United States", the content in "We Are the Land" will leave you wondering why no one taught you these stories before and excited to share the facts with anyone willing to listen...if you can stick with it.
Unfortunately, as with many academic books, We Are the Land is dry. There's no doubt the authors worked on this project with love, respect, and a passion for telling California history from an Indigenous-centered perspective, but it is fact after fact after fact with almost no editorial personality and too few narrative connections to create any wave of story momentum for the reader to ride. Instead, she must persist of her own will to take in the information being presented.
In theory, I recommend the book, especially for folks raised in California whose only education about their state's history--like mine--centered on the missions and the Gold Rush with no mention of who else was there before and while all of that happened; at the same time, I wouldn't blame someone if they couldn't get through it. You have to want to read it for the sake of the information.
Something I did very much appreciate about the authors' style is the way they presented their sources in a more narrative format at the end of every section. Should one want to go back and follow the historical conversation about a particular event or era, they made it very easy to do so, and for that reason I'll be keeping the book on my shelf.
Unfortunately, as with many academic books, We Are the Land is dry. There's no doubt the authors worked on this project with love, respect, and a passion for telling California history from an Indigenous-centered perspective, but it is fact after fact after fact with almost no editorial personality and too few narrative connections to create any wave of story momentum for the reader to ride. Instead, she must persist of her own will to take in the information being presented.
In theory, I recommend the book, especially for folks raised in California whose only education about their state's history--like mine--centered on the missions and the Gold Rush with no mention of who else was there before and while all of that happened; at the same time, I wouldn't blame someone if they couldn't get through it. You have to want to read it for the sake of the information.
Something I did very much appreciate about the authors' style is the way they presented their sources in a more narrative format at the end of every section. Should one want to go back and follow the historical conversation about a particular event or era, they made it very easy to do so, and for that reason I'll be keeping the book on my shelf.