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calarco 's review for:
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
If you are looking for a fresh perspective on American history, then An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States is a solid choice.
Covering 400 years dating back to Europeans first interactions with indigenous groups, to modern day U.S. policy, the timeline of the work is ambitious. That said, as the focus of the book is largely on indigenous perspectives of European and U.S. genocide and colonization, I think it is remarkably good at highlighting initial impacts of these policies, as well how they effect the U.S. a number of ways in the present.
This book also provides a great exploration of American identity, or rather the fallacies of certain problematic myths surrounding American exceptionalism. Even today early settlers are thought of as having “discovered” an uninhabited land, which they then cultivated through a unique work ethic, upon which they then birthed democratic values. When seriously looking at U.S. government mandated land-grabbing and genocide, it is hard to hold on to this viewpoint when faced with some obvious hypocrisies.
The book also does a good job of explaining how the survivors and descendants of this multi-centuries long American genocide, still exist. When many in the public conceptualize people indigenous to America, they often think of days past and an archaeological context. Yet there are still people with vibrant cultures that still persist and exist.
That said, this leads into my one criticism of the book. While it does do a great job of describing atrocities committed by the U.S. to hold the government accountable in the present, and the title, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, does clearly show that the scope of the book is the indigenous take on key U.S. policies and events (that heavily effected them), what I wanted more of was information on the different Native American groups’ culture, art, and other achievements.
While the book focuses on important critiques, I think a people (or groups of people) are more than the atrocities they must endure. I would have liked to have known more about indigenous culture and traditions that allowed for perseverance or are just significant in their own right.
After all is said and done though, this is a solid read, and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone interested in learning about U.S. history, because Native American history is U.S. history.
Covering 400 years dating back to Europeans first interactions with indigenous groups, to modern day U.S. policy, the timeline of the work is ambitious. That said, as the focus of the book is largely on indigenous perspectives of European and U.S. genocide and colonization, I think it is remarkably good at highlighting initial impacts of these policies, as well how they effect the U.S. a number of ways in the present.
This book also provides a great exploration of American identity, or rather the fallacies of certain problematic myths surrounding American exceptionalism. Even today early settlers are thought of as having “discovered” an uninhabited land, which they then cultivated through a unique work ethic, upon which they then birthed democratic values. When seriously looking at U.S. government mandated land-grabbing and genocide, it is hard to hold on to this viewpoint when faced with some obvious hypocrisies.
The book also does a good job of explaining how the survivors and descendants of this multi-centuries long American genocide, still exist. When many in the public conceptualize people indigenous to America, they often think of days past and an archaeological context. Yet there are still people with vibrant cultures that still persist and exist.
That said, this leads into my one criticism of the book. While it does do a great job of describing atrocities committed by the U.S. to hold the government accountable in the present, and the title, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, does clearly show that the scope of the book is the indigenous take on key U.S. policies and events (that heavily effected them), what I wanted more of was information on the different Native American groups’ culture, art, and other achievements.
While the book focuses on important critiques, I think a people (or groups of people) are more than the atrocities they must endure. I would have liked to have known more about indigenous culture and traditions that allowed for perseverance or are just significant in their own right.
After all is said and done though, this is a solid read, and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone interested in learning about U.S. history, because Native American history is U.S. history.