Stopping to Think

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz My rating: 3 of 5 stars 3.25-3.5 This was not an enjoyable book-not due to the writing, Dunbar-Ortiz is perfectly capable in that department. But this history she records is unbelievably depressing. Some of her analytical tools fail her (critical theory, Marxist theory) and cause her to at times over-state the case or impute ill (Colonialist and Racist) motives to those who were undoubtedly concerned more with self-preservation and opportunity than with the destruction of the Native Peoples of the United States. One needn't say all white settlers and government officials had ill motives in order to make clear the horrific impacts such motives had in influencing the culture. But whether or not one agrees with all of her analysis, the plain facts recorded of the immense number of Indigenous people killed, displaced, and otherwise harmed, treaties re-written, broken, and ignored, and the many attempts b...

Black Elk Speaks by Black Elk My rating: 4 of 5 stars I started this book a long time ago. I slowly poked my way through, and thoroughly benefitted from evey step of my pokey way. The extensive footnotes and endnotes, as well as the 10 appendecies, are helpful in pulling apart Neihardt's poetry from Black Elk's actual narrative. As a Christian, I have a lot of questions about the origin of Black Elk's visions. And how reliable one man's memory of events occuring some thirty to sixty years earlier can be thought to be is, well, questionable. That said, this is a book worth reading. The penetrating criticism of modern life (circa 1930) provided in places by Neihardt and in oter by Black Elk himself, is worthy of pondering. The poetry of what Neihardt writes is simply haunting in places. And one does become more familiar with the story of the Lakota and their dealings with the U.S. Government. I plan to revisit this book in the future. View all my reviews