The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History (National Book Award Winner)

by Ned Blackhawk

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Distinguished scholar and historian, Ned Blackhawk urges a conversation-shifting change in our historical perspective — one that places Indigenous history front, center and essential to the accurate rendering of America’s fuller story. Blackhawk’s book sets a new paradigm.

National Bestseller
 
Winner of the 2023 National Book Award in Nonfiction • Finalist for the 2024 Los Angeles Times Book Award in History • Winner of 2024 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Nonfiction
 
Named a best book of 2023 by New Yorker, Esquire, Barnes & Noble
 
A New York Times Notable Book of 2023 • A Washington Post Notable Work of Nonfiction of 2023 • An NPR “Book We Love” for 2023
 
“Eloquent and comprehensive. . . . In the book’s sweeping synthesis, standard flashpoints of U.S. history take on new meaning.”—Kathleen DuVal, Wall Street Journal
 
“In accounts of American history, Indigenous peoples are often treated as largely incidental—either obstacles to be overcome or part of a narrative separate from the arc of nation-building. Blackhawk . . . [shows] that Native communities have, instead, been inseparable from the American story all along.”—Washington Post Book World, “Books to Read in 2023”
 
A sweeping and overdue retelling of U.S. history that recognizes that Native Americans are essential to understanding the evolution of modern America
 
The most enduring feature of U.S. history is the presence of Native Americans, yet most histories focus on Europeans and their descendants. This long practice of ignoring Indigenous history is changing, however, as a new generation of scholars insists that any full American history address the struggle, survival, and resurgence of American Indian nations. Indigenous history is essential to understanding the evolution of modern America.
 
Ned Blackhawk interweaves five centuries of Native and non‑Native histories, from Spanish colonial exploration to the rise of Native American self-determination in the late twentieth century. In this transformative synthesis he shows that
• European colonization in the 1600s was never a predetermined success;
• Native nations helped shape England’s crisis of empire;
• the first shots of the American Revolution were prompted by Indian affairs in the interior;
• California Indians targeted by federally funded militias were among the first casualties of the Civil War;
• the Union victory forever recalibrated Native communities across the West;
• twentieth-century reservation activists refashioned American law and policy.
 
Blackhawk’s retelling of U.S. history acknowledges the enduring power, agency, and survival of Indigenous peoples, yielding a truer account of the United States and revealing anew the varied meanings of America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300244052
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	04/25/2023
Series:	The Henry Roe Cloud Series on American Indians and Modernity
Pages:	616
Sales rank:	1,806
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone) is the Howard R. Lamar Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University, where he is the faculty coordinator for the Yale Group for the Study of Native America. He is the author of Violence over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West. He lives in New Haven, CT.

Editorial Reviews

★ 02/13/2023

“American Indians were central to every century of U.S. historical development,” argues Yale historian Blackhawk (Violence over the Land) in this sweeping study. He begins with the arrival of Spanish explorers in Mexico and Florida in the 16th century, before shifting to French and British colonization efforts in the Northeast and the Ohio River Valley. In both instances, Native communities endured extreme violence and devastating epidemics, while employing fluid survival strategies (fighting, relocating, converting to Christianity, trading, intermarrying) that influenced imperial ambitions and behavior. Blackhawk also makes a persuasive case that in the wake of the Seven Years’ War and the expulsion of French forces from the interior of North America, “the growing allegiances between British and Indian leaders became valuable fodder in colonists’ critiques of their monarch,” helping to lead to the Revolutionary War. In Blackhawk’s telling, “Indian affairs” remained a potent political and social issue through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the New Deal and Cold War eras, as the removal of more than 75,000 Native children to federally funded boarding schools between the 1870s and 1920s and the dispossession of nearly a hundred million acres of reservation land during the same time period gave rise to a new generation of activists whose efforts to regain Native autonomy reshaped U.S. law and culture. Striking a masterful balance between the big picture and crystal-clear snapshots of key people and events, this is a vital new understanding of American history. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Eloquent and comprehensive. . . . By presenting post-1492 history as a series of encounters between the various peoples of the Americas and the peoples from Europe, Africa, and Asia—rather than as an account of Europe’s discovery of a new world—Blackhawk provides a view of that past from multiple perspectives. . . . In the book’s sweeping synthesis, standard flashpoints of U.S. history take on new meaning.”—Kathleen DuVal, Wall Street Journal

“Even as the telling of American history has become more complex and nuanced, Native Americans tend to be absent. Blackhawk, a professor at Yale, confronts that absence in this sweeping account of how Native Americans shaped the country legally, politically, and culturally.”—Washington Post, “50 Notable Works of Nonfiction” (2023)

“A sweeping, important, revisionist work of American history that places Native Americans front and center.”—New York Times Book Review (cover review)

“[A] monumental reappraisal of the United States’ history. . . . Blackhawk . . . foregrounds the endurance of Native Americans’ autonomy and traditions in the face of their near-eradication.”—New Yorker, “The Best Books of 2023”

“An ambitious retelling of the American story . . . placing Indigenous populations at the center, a shift in perspective that yields fresh insights and thought-provoking questions.”—Greg Cowles, New York Times Book Review, “Editors’ Choice”

“In accounts of American history, Indigenous peoples are often treated as largely incidental—either obstacles to be overcome or part of a narrative separate from the arc of nation-building. Blackhawk . . . challenges those minimalizations and exclusions, showing that Native communities have, instead, been inseparable from the American story all along.”—Washington Post Book World, “Books to Read in 2023”

“This ambitious retelling of the American story, by a historian who is also a Native American, places Indigenous populations at the center, a shift in perspective that yields fresh insights and thought-provoking questions.”—New York Times, “100 Notable Books of 2023”

“[Blackhawk’s] book will become an indispensable text for a generation of researchers, educators and students.”—Caroline Dodds Pennock, BBC History Magazine

A Publishers Weekly Top 10 Best Book of 2023

“Gripping and nuanced, The Rediscovery of America is an essential remedy to the historical record.”—Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire, “The 20 Best Books of 2023”

“Building on years of groundbreaking work by Indigenous and settler scholars, Rediscovery clearly sets out how Indigenous nations were key actors in shaping the very foundations of the US, from the American Revolution and the national Constitution to the country’s eventual borders.”—Brian Bethune, The Walrus

“Blackhawk demonstrates how inextricably linked Indigenous history is with all aspects of American life and politics in this expansive survey, which teases out the deep connection between the aims and attitudes of the developing nation and its dealings with Native peoples. Reorienting the history of America as foremost that of an Indigenous colony, Blackhawk calls for a fundamental change of perspective.”—Publishers Weekly

“A thoughtful, innovative, and provocative book. . . . The legends about the founding and growth of the United States have been promulgated so often and so widely that Blackhawk’s conception of American history is long overdue. It is, more than any other attempt at re-interpreting our national story, US history turned upside down.”—David Shribman, Boston Globe

“Ned Blackhawk has opened the door to a national conversation. . . . While academics and educators can argue about whether Blackhawk’s new paradigm should replace existing frameworks for understanding American history, he has succeeded in demonstrating that a deeper knowledge of Native American history should supplement (if not supplant) our understanding of our collective national experience. . . . It’s a conversation worth having. And long overdue.”—Sara Bhatia, Washington Monthly

“Striking a masterful balance between the big picture and crystal-clear snapshots of key people and events, this is a vital new understanding of American history.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Illuminating and ambitious, . . . rewarding and essential.”—Patrick Rapa, Philadelphia Inquirer, “Best New Books to Read in May”

“Deeply researched and engagingly written, the book is a monumental achievement.”—Rhoda Feng, Mother Jones

“A wide-ranging study that moves Indigenous peoples from the periphery to the core of continental history.”—Kirkus Reviews

“As Blackhawk puts it, ‘Encounter—rather than discovery—must structure America’s origins story.’ The Rediscovery of America shows the power of encounter in many places—from the Monroe Doctrine to Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty.”—Craig Fehrman, Boston Globe

“Raise your hand if you didn’t learn Indigenous history in school—or if you only learned a racist, white-centric, colonizer version of it. Infuriatingly, the prevalence of harmful myths about Native history is still far, far too common. In this comprehensive history of Native America, Ned Blackhawk adds his voice to the growing chorus of Indigenous scholars and historians who are fighting back against this erasure.”—Laura Sackton, Book Riot

“Blackhawk argues that U.S. history cannot be understood without understanding how Indigenous and settler histories are interwoven.”—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

“Blackhawk . . . masterfully webs together a challenge of the nationalist, oversimplified narratives Americans know so well. . . . I found nuggets on every page. I could have spent weeks poring over the bibliography, running back and forth between Blackhawk’s synthesis and other sources. There’s so much to learn and absorb. It’s my hope that this book gets into the hands of every history teacher in this country.”—Izzie Ramirez, Vox

“Engrossing and thought-provoking, . . . highlight[ing] the myriad ways Indigenous people have shaped the United States’ politics, Constitution, diplomacy and culture.”—Bridget Bentz, NPR’s “Books We Love” for 2023

“Eschewing reductive or binary narratives, Blackhawk approaches the history of America as an overlay of stories that both intertwine and diverge. Of course, the center of his chronicle is the reality that the space occupied by the world’s model for democracy is land that was taken from Indigenous people. From first contact, through wars, revolution, and ever-changing federal policy, Blackhawk’s National Book Award–winning text shows how Native people shaped America’s story.”—Ryan Winn, Tribal College Journal, “Best Native Studies Books of 2023”

“Blackhawk’s achievement in the book is to direct our attention to the many ways in which U.S. history is closely intertwined with that of Native Americans; he shows how interactions with native peoples have shaped not only ideas of American nationhood but even constitutional structures.”—The Bulwark

2023 National Book Award winner, nonfiction category, sponsored by the National Book Foundation

2024 Mark Lynton History Prize winner, sponsored by Columbia School of Journalism and Nieman Foundation

Selected for the 2024 Michigan Notable Books list

2023 Los Angeles Times Book Award in History Finalist

2024 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards winner, nonfiction category, sponsored by the Cleveland Foundation

“The Rediscovery of America is a testimony to the transformation of the field of American Indian history over the past several decades, and Blackhawk has abandoned the ‘interpretive tools’ of generations of American historians.”—Brenda J. Child, University of Minnesota
 
“Ned Blackhawk’s elegant and sweeping account of American history illuminates five centuries of Native American history. He upends familiar narratives to reveal the enduring centrality and vitality of Native peoples in American political life.”—Barbara Krauthamer, Emory University
 
“Ned Blackhawk not only restores Native Americans to the core of the continent’s story but also offers a running analysis spanning immense times and climes.”—Andrés Reséndez, author of Conquering the Pacific

“On his search to rediscover America, Blackhawk brilliantly rewrites U.S. history, illustrating that it cannot be told absent American Indians. This is the history text we have been waiting for.”—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

“Richly told and deeply informed, The Rediscovery of America demonstrates the centrality of Indigenous Americans to U.S. history. Blackhawk shows that at every turn the enduring relations between natives and newcomers have shaped the course of the American republic.”—Claudio Saunt, author of the National Book Award finalist Unworthy Republic

“Ranging across the continent and across the centuries, Ned Blackhawk skillfully interweaves American history and Native American history, demonstrating conclusively that we cannot properly understand one without the other.”—Colin  G. Calloway, Dartmouth College

“Refusing to tell simple stories of subordination or resistance, Ned Blackhawk shows how American politics, law, diplomacy, the economy, and popular culture become incomprehensible without a Native presence.”—Richard White, Stanford University

From the Publisher

01/01/2023

A Western Shoshone and professor of history and American studies at Yale University, Blackhawk argues that U.S. history cannot be understood without understanding how Indigenous and settler histories are interwoven. Among his points: European colonization was not a foregone conclusion, Indigenous nations helped shape England's empire, Indigenous affairs were closely linked to the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Indigenous peoples of California were among the first casualties of the Civil War, and Indigenous activism in the 20th century reshaped U.S. law and policy. Oxford scholar Pekka Hämäläinen's Indigenous Continent is getting lots of deserved attention, but here is a voice from within.

Library Journal

2023-01-12
A wide-ranging study that moves Indigenous peoples from the periphery to the core of continental history.

“Indigenous absence has been a long tradition of American historical analysis,” writes Blackhawk, a professor of history and faculty coordinator for the Yale Group for the Study of Native America. In recent years, this has changed thanks to the efforts of a new generation of historians to count marginalized groups such as women and ethnic minorities in the larger narrative. By the author’s account, American history represents an “epic encounter” between empires, Native and European, each conditioning the other. For example, pressures on the nations of the Iroquois Confederacy by British/American collision with the French Empire in North America pushed Iroquoian peoples into the Ohio River Valley, creating further conflict among Indigenous groups. In his lucid exposition, Blackhawk rightly notes, “while violence was an essential institution of colonialism, it was never enough to achieve permanent goals of empire.” While violence may have secured certain short-term goals, it introduced still more instability into an already unsettled situation that endangered everyone involved. “Once it is initiated,” writes the author, “none can predict its ultimate course.” Blackhawk locates some of the most fraught moments of westward expansion in the years of the Civil War, when a preoccupied Abraham Lincoln left matters of Native policy largely to his generals in the West, advocating instead an abstract program of “assimilation, land cessions, and eventual disappearance.” Violence naturally ensued, with new Native confederations such as alliances of the Sioux and Cheyenne against the U.S. Army leading to Little Big Horn. The author closes with an analysis of the doctrine of “termination,” which attempted to dismantle Native communities, assimilate their members, and steal away their treaty lands, plans that eventually failed. Even today, though, Blackhawk notes that conflict exists as interest groups attempt to erase “the hard-fought gains of the modern sovereignty movement.”

A well-reasoned challenge for future American historians to keep Native peoples on center stage.

Kirkus Reviews