An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

Great; necessary. Half of my book club read this while the other half reading Indigenous Continent, and I think based on David Treuer's review in The New Yorker, I'm happy about my pick. Dunbar-Ortiz has a sweeping comprehensive view of the historical details plus a searing vision of the completely cohesive through line between our founding (and ongoing) genocide against Indigenous peoples and current imperialist foreign policy (and the delusional moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy at the center of it). I also especially appreciated the last chapter on what the future may hold. I occasionally had trouble tracking the geography of what she recounts because she tended to organize by theme/time period, but I think this also reflects that the Indigenous experience included both forced relocation and resistance through geographical flexibility.

None of us have even a remote understanding of the history of indigenous peoples because even the most undeniable horrors have been thoroughly whitewashed for the sake of maintaining the lie of American Exceptionalism. This book provides some understanding to the horrors that fell the people that lived on the land we're living on now, including the multiple genocides committed against them, starting with those committed by Columbus himself. They weren't the savages. We were.

Highly Recommended

This book tells the history of the United States with regard to the indigenous inhabitants of the land. It tells the stories that were left out of the history most people educated in the US learned in school, including stories about people we were raised to think of as admirable, like Daniel Boone. After it fills in the gaps you didn't know were in your education about the forming of the United States, it shows how our stance in the world today as a dominant power, bringer of democracy, a militaristic empire, has developed directly out of the way we treated the indigenous people of this land. This is an eye opening book, suitable for academic environments and for general readers. It has an extensive bibliography and notes, as well as an index, but is written in approachable language. Everyone should read it.