Book Description
From the bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea—winner of the National Book Award—the startling story of the Plymouth Colony
From the perilous ocean crossing to the shared bounty of the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrim settlement of New England has become enshrined as our most sacred national myth. Yet, as bestselling author Nathaniel Philbrick reveals in his spellbinding new book, the true story of the Pilgrims is much more than the well-known tale of piety and sacrifice; it is a fifty-five-year epic that is at once tragic, heroic, exhilarating, and profound.
The MayflowerÂ's religious refugees arrived in Plymouth Harbor during a period of crisis for Native Americans as disease spread by European fishermen devastated their populations. Initially the two groups—the Wampanoags, under the charismatic and calculating chief Massasoit, and the Pilgrims, whose pugnacious military officer Miles Standish was barely five feet tall—maintained a fragile working relationship. But within decades, New England would erupt into King PhilipÂ's War, a savagely bloody conflict that nearly wiped out English colonists and natives alike and forever altered the face of the fledgling colonies and the country that would grow from them.
With towering figures like William Bradford and the distinctly American hero Benjamin Church at the center of his narrative, Philbrick has fashioned a fresh and compelling portrait of the dawn of American history—a history dominated right from the start by issues of race, violence, and religion.
Customer Reviews:
Not what I was hoping for.......2007-10-13
I couldn't get into this book because it was very different from what I thought it would be. I expected "Mayflower" to be a detailed account of why the pilgrims decided to journey to America, and also a vivid description of what life aboard the Mayflower was actually like. The book did cover those things, but only for a few short pages. Most of the book is devoted to the history of Plymouth Colony and King Philip's War. Author Nataniel Philbrick does an excellent job of shooting down the myths many people believe about what the pilgrim settlement was actually like, but I was much more interested in reading about the actual Mayflower journey and was disappointed that so little information about that event was included in this 400+ page book. "Mayflower" should be called "King Philip's War" so readers know what they're getting into.
Educational book.......2007-09-26
This is a very informative, accurate writing of our history. More people should read and know the real history of our country.
Not what I expected, but.......2007-09-16
the book was still a captivating piece of literature. I read this directly after reading In the Heart of the Sea by Philbrick, and was expecting the same type of story. That was not the case however. The title is a bit misleading in that one thinks they are going to be reading (or at least I did) a story of the journey. The subtitle should have cued me in. The book is about the struggle between the settlers and the natives more so than it is about the voyage to the new world. All that being said, I still loved the book. I gave the book four stars because I wish there was more about the actual voyage, and I think the title is a little misleading. All in all though, it is a superb piece of literature.
Clear & Interesting narrative of a difficult and complex period.......2007-09-13
There really aren't very many good, recent books about the early years in Massachusetts. This is an exceptional treatment...very engaging and clear. The number of Indian tribes, the various Pilgrims, Puritans, etc. can be a real mess to understand. And of course, there is usually a biased or pointed perspective you have to deal with. Philbrick has genuine regard for the good on both the English side and the various Indian sides and heartfelt disdain for the vicious and stupid acts on both sides that caused this war and ultimately turned it into a 14 month blood bath throughout New England. Makes me want to do some real research here in my New Hampshire home town.
Myth History and Real History.......2007-09-13
Every American teen should read this book. Myth-busting, rich in suggestion and detail, comprehensively researched. The defining text for this country's first sixty years.
Book Description
Praise for Blood and Thunder
“Kit Carson’s role in the conquest of the Navajo during and after the Civil War remains one of the most dramatic and significant episodes in the history of the American West. Hampton Sides portrays Carson in the larger context of the conquest of the entire West, including his frequent and often lethal encounters with hostile Native Americans. Unusually, Sides gives full voice to Indian leaders themselves about their trials and tribulations in their dealings with the whites. Here is a national hero on the level of Daniel Boone, presented with all of his flaws and virtues, in the context of American people’s belief that it was their Manifest Destiny to occupy the entire West.”
—Howard Lamar, Sterling Professor Emeritus of History, Yale University and editor of The New Encyclopedia of the American West
“The story of the American West has seldom been told with such intimacy and immediacy. Legendary figures like Kit Carson leap to life and history moves at a pulse-pounding pace—sweeping the reader along with it. Hampton Sides is a terrific storyteller.”
—Candice Millard, author of The River of Doubt
“Hampton Sides doesn't just write a book, he transports the reader to another time and place. With his keen sense of drama and his crackling writing style, this master storyteller has bequeathed us a majestic history of the Old West.”
—James Bradley, author of Flags of Our Fathers and Flyboys
“Blood and Thunder is a big-hearted book whose subject is as expansive as they come. Hampton Sides tackles it with naked pleasure and narrative cunning: In his telling, the vast saga of America’s westward push has a logical center. The dusty town of Santa Fe becomes the nexus around which swirl the fortunes and strategies of a mixed set of serious overachievers, from Kit Carson, the original mountain man, to James K. Polk, the enigmatic president whose achievements, in the dreaded name of Manifest Destiny, were almost biblical in scope. Sides is alive to the exuberance and alert to the tragedy of the taking of the West.”
—Russell Shorto, author of Island at the Center of the World
“For a huge percentage of us immigrant Americans (those whose ancestors arrived after 1492), Hampton Sides fills a gaping hole in our knowledge of American history—a vivid account of how ‘The New Men’ swept away the thriving civilizations of the Native Americans in their conquest of the West.”
—Tony Hillerman
"BLOOD AND THUNDER is a balanced, thoughtful summary of the American conquistadors in the 19th century Southwest. Hampton Sides has re-created violent events and such inflammatory figures as Kit Carson without bias. Carefully researched, thoroughly enjoyable."
-Evan S. Connell, author of SON OF THE MORNING STAR, CUSTER AND THE LITTLE BIGHORN
A Magnificent History of How the West Was Really Won—a Sweeping Tale of Shame and Glory
In the fall of 1846 the venerable Navajo warrior Narbona, greatest of his people’s chieftains, looked down upon the small town of Santa Fe, the stronghold of the Mexican settlers he had been fighting his whole long life. He had come to see if the rumors were true—if an army of blue-suited soldiers had swept in from the East and utterly defeated his ancestral enemies. As Narbona gazed down on the battlements and cannons of a mighty fort the invaders had built, he realized his foes had been vanquished—but what did the arrival of these “New Men” portend for the Navajo?
Narbona could not have known that “The Army of the West,” in the midst of the longest march in American military history, was merely the vanguard of an inexorable tide fueled by a self-righteous ideology now known as “Manifest Destiny.” For twenty years the Navajo, elusive lords of a huge swath of mountainous desert and pasturelands, would ferociously resist the flood of soldiers and settlers who wished to change their ancient way of life or destroy them.
Hampton Sides’s extraordinary book brings the history of the American conquest of the West to ringing life. It is a tale with many heroes and villains, but as is found in the best history, the same person might be both. At the center of it all stands the remarkable figure of Kit Carson—the legendary trapper, scout, and soldier who embodies all the contradictions and ambiguities of the American experience in the West. Brave and clever, beloved by his contemporaries, Carson was an illiterate mountain man who twice married Indian women and understood and respected the tribes better than any other American alive. Yet he was also a cold-blooded killer who willingly followed orders tantamount to massacre. Carson’s almost unimaginable exploits made him a household name when they were written up in pulp novels known as “blood-and-thunders,” but now that name is a bitter curse for contemporary Navajo, who cannot forget his role in the travails of their ancestors.
Customer Reviews:
Fremont's Reputation.......2007-10-14
This is an excellent book except for the Fremont-bashing that seems to be fashionable. It is especially distressing that the material about Fremont came from a non-historical work with no scholarly background entitled "A Newer World". The author would have been better advised to supply his own supporting references. That is enough of a reason to knock off a star.
one of the best.......2007-10-13
If you have any interest in American History please read this book. We read the entire book outloud, quite an undertaking, so I'm glad to see that is available as an audiobook. The writing is riveting, the bibliography reassuring, the story enlightening. This book is a springboard into the conquest of the Western United States and will give you new eyes if and when traveling through these areas. Read the book.
Thoroughly engrossing biography of Kit Carson.......2007-10-12
This is an excellent biography of a famous American pioneer--Kit Carson. What sets it apart is its humane treatment of a complex figure. Carson appears to have been the "real deal," not a manufactured hero.
The book proceeds by interweaving several story lines, which can be somewhat confusing at times but, in the end, this serves the author well. Among the story lines--Kit Carson's exploits, the Navajo leader Narbona's story, General Stephen Kearney's episodes, and so on.
Kit Carson's role--from trapper to hunter to scout to military officer--is the glue that holds this book together. In the process, the reader learns a great deal about the events of the 1830s through 1860s that transformed the United States. The Mexican War dramatically expanded the size of the country; the American conflicts with the Indian nations opened new territories for settlement and economic development; the Civil War ended slavery (although, ironically, perhaps not in the southwest, as Native Americans sometimes served a similar role after the Civil War); the West was opened for development.
What humanizes this book is the treatment of Carson. He was sometimes mercurial (with an occasional burst of temper); he was a person of action, and he sometimes was cruel and brutal; he was also a person of honor; he had a perception of the larger picture in the West, and could see that white aggression was the real problem--not marauding Indians.
On a personal note, the book traces Carson's family lives (he had at least two real families, one with a native American wife), his struggle to be a good husband and father while he was off on one adventure or another most of his life.
This is a strong biography which is set in a larger context. It is well worth looking at.
Reads almost like a novel!.......2007-10-12
I first encountered this book when I heard the author speak at our local bookstore. I am a history lover and wanted to know if this man could pull of another interesting book on American History. I had a copy of the book ready and took copious notes on the blank pages in the back. The author was fascinating to listen to.
Since then, I have read the book thoroughly and found it read almost like a novel. Each chapter led you to want to read on.
I have purchased copies as gifts for friends and even gave a copy to my American Indian History professor and he was enthralled.
Good work. Loved it. You will, too.
Blood and Thunder.......2007-10-09
This is a highly readable and comprehensive account of the adult life and times of Kit Carson and the people/places he touched. It's not a biography, but a series of vignettes documenting his involvement in a variety of professions -- from mountain man to military man -- as the needs of the West evolved. There's a great deal of information about Carson's contemporaries as well. I read the book with a map of New Mexico at hand to more closely identify the places mentioned. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Western history, including the several battles of the Civil War fought in New Mexico.
Book Description
Winner of the 1996 American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship
Americans have lost touch with their history, and in this thought-provoking book, Professor James Loewen shows why. After surveying twelve leading high school American history texts, he has concluded that not one does a decent job of making history interesting or memorable. Marred by an embarrassing combination of blind patriotism, mindless optimism, sheer misinformation, and outright lies, these books omit almost all the ambiguity, passion, conflict, and drama from our past. In ten powerful chapters, Loewen reveals that:
- The United States dropped three times as many tons of explosives in Vietman as it dropped in all theaters of World War II, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- Ponce de Leon went to Florida mainly to capture Native Americans as slaves for Hispaniola, not to find the mythical fountain of youth
- Woodrow Wilson, known as a progressive leader, was in fact a white supremacist who personally vetoed a clause on racial equality in the Covenant of the League of Nations
- The first colony to legalize slavery was not Virginia but Massachusetts
From the truth about Columbus's historic voyages to an honest evaluation of our national leaders, Loewen revives our history, restoring to it the vitality and relevance it truly possesses.
Customer Reviews:
Historical Essay, NOT an easy read!.......2007-10-14
I absolutely loved this book and read it in 2 days. But, I am also a history major, love history, and can read dry lectures. As a fair warning to anyone who is looking to buy this book: don't expect to find fun little quirks and trivia in this book, and don't expect it to be an easy read! It is a college professor's serious and well-researched book, geared toward other historians and scholars. IT IS DRY, IT HAS LOTS OF DATA, IT HAS LOTS OF FOOTNOTES.
If you ARE a history buff, you will probably already know all of the "lies" in the book, but it is still an excellent read. You will be outraged at the lack of ethics of publishers and historians paid to pretend to write textbooks. If you are a history teacher, you DEFINITELY need to read this book and question what your textbooks are (or are not) teaching.
Lastly, if you are an American who still believes the US is THE GREATEST NATION in the world, or THE US IS THE WORLD PROTECTOR, or THE US IS ALWAYS RIGHT, you need to pick up this book right away and re-educate yourself with the facts your old high school social studies book left out.
Book in good condition and delivered quickly.......2007-09-28
I enjoyed this book - all history people should read it! thank you for the quick delivery
Political Conversational tool.......2007-07-31
Although at times unsettling, the purpose of this book is to encourage the questioning of the indoctrinated a one-sided viewpoint of American History.
If you have a cultural diverse group of friends this book may help you understand their indifferences with American History.
A true American accepts both positive and negative parts of history. We don't have to make facts disappear. Acceptance doesn't mean liking, enjoying or condoning. In accepting the truth we can evolve as a nation, but by denying facts we will forever be stuck in cultural wars.
Not a page-turner, not to crazy with the writing style, but interesting.
Absolutely Fantastic! Unfortunately.......2007-07-25
Great book on how the history classes in elementary and high schools have been watered down to the point where they are meaningless. You've always heard people say "those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it". It wasn't until I got to college that I was truely able to see why that is so, when our history classes went beyond "dates and facts". In this book, he makes his points about the dumbing down of history by discussing people, events and facts that have been poorly covered, or ingnored. Sometimes what is taught is just plain wrong, and KNOWN to be wrong by the people writing the books!! This is generally done to avoid controversy and hide distasteful events, or avoid tough questions that have no easy answer. History that is inaccurate, without explaining the context of the times and it's effects today is useless for anything OTHER than propoganda. History is abused (and made into propoganda) by liberal and conservative alike. They ignore facts or context to paint either an overly harsh, or overly rosey picture of our past. This book gives some insight on the damage that causes, especially to minorities whose history is glossed over or just plain inaccurate. This leads to a sense of shame that they somehow haven't contributed to the greatness this country has acheived. A note to the people claiming this is revisonist history. The history you studied in school IS revisionist history! Most people who claim this is revisionist do not support their claims with facts, just claims that it's revisionist because the facts he presents make them uncomfortable. Seek the truth, and let it make you free.
A Must-Read for any American.......2007-07-17
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong is a fresh look at the process of U.S. History textbook creation and adoption. Having written a history textbook himself on Mississippi, author James W. Loewen provides a unique and insightful perspective on this process and how frustrating it can be. Leading readers through case after case of major figures and events in American history including Christopher Columbus, Hellen Keller, the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, and the Civil Rights Movement, Loewen systematically debunks the ideas of progress and heroification. He uses well-cited primary source documents to do this. By removing the historical halos surrounding these and other important people, Loewen hopes that students of American history will discover the inner conflict within those "heroes". Moreover, he desires for American history to be more than a mere memorization of names, dates, and places; he asserts that by exploring the past with more depth and specificity through primary source documents, one can better understand the forces that have shaped it.
As I began to read this book, I was immediately captivated by the suggestion that I had missed out on important truths regarding our country's past. Believing my high school education to be excellent, I wondered what my teachers whom I held in such high regard could have taught me incorrectly. The book starts with Helen Keller, the blind and deaf woman who learns to communicate with the help of a mentor, Anne Sullivan. Honestly, this is all I really knew about her from the film The Miracle Worker. Loewen reveals that learning to live with her handicaps was only a point of departure for Keller, who became a radical socialist who was a member of the Socialist party and lauded the rise of communism in Russia. While some might find this information troubling, it made sense to me. Keller, reliant on a community of others to support her, experienced a life that required a quasi-socialist structure. The remainder of this chapter discussed how Woodrow Wilson, the man who called for the creation of the League of Nations in his Fourteen Points for Peace following World War I, had already invaded many countries in Latin America and provided troops for the Russian Civil War. These aggressive military actions don't seem peaceful at all. By this point in the book, I was fascinated and ready to learn more.
As I continued through the book I realized that even though I agreed with most of Loewen's assertions, I still found bias in them. I can see why many reviewers of this book found it to be overwhelmingly pessimistic; from a particular viewpoint, it could ruin the images of many American "heroes" by disclosing embarrassing information about them. I would assert that even though I don't know anything about Loewen, I would bet that he is socially and politically liberal based on his commentary on his findings. Even the topics covered in this book support ideas that are essentially progressive: that America is an amalgamation of Native American, African, and European cultures rather than a transplanting of European influences, that non-Europeans played significant roles in the history of America, and that many of our white heroes possessed great flaws.
Acknowledging these things, I must admit that I am fairly liberal myself and found both pleasure and academic stimulation from Loewen's progressive stance. He validates suspicions I have always had about many of these historical figures, that they couldn't be perfect people possessing morals, intellects, and abilities greater than people today. In addition, I've often believed that America's "democratization" of the world was more in the interest of hegemony rather than benevolence. Seeing Woodrow Wilson's military campaigns in other countries, our treatment of communist and socialist countries like Russia, Cuba, and North Korea, and our violent actions in the Vietnam War supports that belief.
While the first six chapters of the book seem to present only Loewen's revisionist stance, the last six chapters do a better job at presenting alternate viewpoints. In his discussion of social stratification in textbooks, for instance, he suggests critical theory could be at play, omitting facts and ideas that would illuminate the schism between the upper and lower classes in America. He then provides a counter-argument, citing Eyes on the Prize, Who Rules America Now? And Savage Inqeualities as subversive and revealing books published by elite-controlled publishing houses; he also cites exhibits of this type at large American History museums run by the upper class.
That history can be viewed through different sociological, economic, and cultural lenses reveals how "truth" is in the eye of the beholder, a notion this book supports. I've often said, "Those who want to believe in God will find him and those who don't will not." This concept is salient in determining truth in history. American history textbooks purposely omit information and whitewash mistakes of our forefathers because they will not get published or adopted if they offend a certain interest group or state adoption board. The "vanilla America" represented in these books support the idea of progress--a sentimental notion that despite our flaws, America is better off now than it was a hundred years ago and will continue to improve in the future. How can this be when the gap between the richest and poorest peoples of the world is larger now than ever before? Those who want to believe that America is the greatest country in the world and that America is and has always been the leading proponent of freedom in the world will seek sources that substantiate those ideas. Likewise, they will reject sources that suggest otherwise. Loewen's findings show that not only has America failed to be a benevolent harbinger of liberty and hope, but it also continues to sow hegemony throughout today's global community.
Ultimately, those who believe in American domination and the myth of progress will not like this book. American history textbooks produce citizens who will believe in these ethnocentric superlatives. This is wonderful for the perpetuation of the status quo of American economic and military supremacy. However, books like Loewen's will produce Americans who can see how our country truly developed, confirming another one of my sayings, "The fact that the world is the way it is doesn't mean that's the way it should be." This realization will create a different kind of citizen, one who realizes that flawed people can still do great things, understands that contemporary society is a plethora of historical forces at work, and believes that despite our country's mistakes, we still have much to be proud of.
Book Description
Listen to a short interview with Karen Ordahl Kupperman
Host: Chris Gondek | Producer: Heron & Crane
Captain John Smith's 1607 voyage to Jamestown was not his first trip abroad. He had traveled throughout Europe, been sold as a war captive in Turkey, escaped, and returned to England in time to join the Virginia Company's colonizing project. In Jamestown migrants, merchants, and soldiers who had also sailed to the distant shores of the Ottoman Empire, Africa, and Ireland in search of new beginnings encountered Indians who already possessed broad understanding of Europeans. Experience of foreign environments and cultures had sharpened survival instincts on all sides and aroused challenging questions about human nature and its potential for transformation.
It is against this enlarged temporal and geographic background that Jamestown dramatically emerges in Karen Kupperman's breathtaking study. Reconfiguring the national myth of Jamestown's failure, she shows how the settlement's distinctly messy first decade actually represents a period of ferment in which individuals were learning how to make a colony work. Despite the settlers' dependence on the Chesapeake Algonquians and strained relations with their London backers, they forged a tenacious colony that survived where others had failed. Indeed, the structures and practices that evolved through trial and error in Virginia would become the model for all successful English colonies, including Plymouth.
Capturing England's intoxication with a wider world through ballads, plays, and paintings, and the stark reality of Jamestown--for Indians and Europeans alike--through the words of its inhabitants as well as archeological and environmental evidence, Kupperman re-creates these formative years with astonishing detail.
Customer Reviews:
History done right.......2007-06-24
Kupperman does an excellent job of establishing the cultural, religious, and political atmosphere at the time of the colony's origins. I found it fascinating to immersive myself in the whys of the colony: why was it started, why were people interested in investing in it, etc. I also felt there were a lot of interesting parallels to the story of the colony and to that today--of how government and corporations often place financial interests far above humanitarian interests. The book also gave me a much more accurate idea of what it must have meant to be a colonist and helped dispel the myth that in fleeing England these people found a land of freedom and opportunity. It also gave me a very deep appreciation for the first settlers as without them, I surely would never be here. This excellent work does a wonderful job of providing an intelligent, in-depth examination of our origins as a country and it does so in an engaging manner so that it reads more like a novel and nothing like a dry textbook.
The Jamestown Project.......2007-05-13
Once I started it I couldn't put it down! Very factual and riveting. The author did an exceptional job of relating what these poor people actually lived to start our great nation.
A Good "Atlantic" Reworking of the Jamestown Story.......2007-03-28
Karen Ordahl Kupperman revisits territory she knows well with this latest history of Jamestown. What distinguishes Kupperman's history from the slew of other books which have come before is the very self conscious effort to put the founding of Jamestown within an Atlantic history context.
For people who are looking for a detailed history of Jamestown itself this is not the book. Instead you should perhaps try one of Dr Kupperman's other books. She only gets to the actual founding of the colony in the last two chapters of the book. Instead she discusses the world which brought about the colonization. That is the true purpose of this book and why it is called the Jamestown PROJECT. By placing the story of the colony within the larger background of financial expansion, political maneuvering, and geopolitics, Kupperman makes us very conscious of the contingency of Jamestown. This was not an inevitable event, the precursor to American history. Rather, it was the END of a long series of events and trends which contributed to the settlement there and the way it developed.
Along the way Kupperman takes us on a sweeping journey of the Early Modern world. Her topics range from the waxing and waning of Islamic powers, to the routes of Spanish expansion, to the creation of Caribbean colonies, the continental wars of 16th century Europe, and the life of Native Americans both in America and Europe. All of this is, while at times disjointed, a welcome background to the colonization of Jamestown and reframes the familiar story in illuminating ways. The background explains why the colony was founded the way it was: why did the colonists refuse to grow food? Why did they interact with the Natives the way they did? Kupperman's book is a useful one for anyone interested in the early history of America or the Atlantic world.
Amazon.com
First published in 1970, this extraordinary book changed the way Americans think about the original inhabitants of their country. Beginning with the Long Walk of the Navajos in 1860 and ending 30 years later with the massacre of Sioux men, women, and children at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, it tells how the American Indians lost their land and lives to a dynamically expanding white society. During these three decades, America's population doubled from 31 million to 62 million. Again and again, promises made to the Indians fell victim to the ruthlessness and greed of settlers pushing westward to make new lives. The Indians were herded off their ancestral lands into ever-shrinking reservations, and were starved and killed if they resisted. It is a truism that "history is written by the victors"; for the first time, this book described the opening of the West from the Indians' viewpoint. Accustomed to stereotypes of Indians as red savages, white Americans were shocked to read the reasoned eloquence of Indian leaders and learn of the bravery with which they and their peoples endured suffering. With meticulous research and in measured language overlaying brutal narrative, Dee Brown focused attention on a national disgrace. Still controversial but with many of its premises now accepted, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee has sold 5 million copies around the world. Thirty years after it first broke onto the national conscience, it has lost none of its importance or emotional impact. --John Stevenson
Book Description
Now a special 30th-anniversary edition in both hardcover and paperback, the classic bestselling history The New York Times called "Original, remarkable, and finally heartbreaking....Impossible to put down"Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is Dee Brown's eloquent, fully documented account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian during the second half of the nineteenth century. A national bestseller in hardcover for more than a year after its initial publication, it has sold almost four million copies and has been translated into seventeen languages. For this elegant thirtieth-anniversary edition -- published in both hardcover and paperback -- Brown has contributed an incisive new preface.Using council records, autobiographies, and firsthand descriptions, Brown allows the great chiefs and warriors of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes to tell us in their own words of the battles, massacres, and broken treaties that finally left them demoralized and defeated. A unique and disturbing narrative told with force and clarity, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee changed forever our vision of how the West was really won.
Customer Reviews:
BURY MY HEART ! (the truth of how our government "won" the west).......2007-10-10
I first read Dee Brown's book, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee (1970) as a college assignment. It changed the way I looked at America/our country, America/our history, and America/our land. The book is subtitled "An Indian History Of The American West", and focuses on the period of 1860 to 1890. This was after "The Trail Of Tears" of the 1830s, when the Cherokee, Choctaw, and other Indian nations were forced against their will to evacuate the eastern United States and move west. The book covers the Apaches, the Navajo, the Cheyenne, the Nez Percez, and the Sioux, among others. The wars, the injustices, and the sad fate of men, women, and children who died trying to pack up and move their lives yet once again. Brown doesn't portray the Indians as saints, either, but only as people with limited resources who, too many times, trusted the promises of a government that would, time and time again, go back on it's word, and forcibly humiliate them. Brown also points out that sometimes the Indians overreacted by attacking innocent non-military settlements. Mostly the book is a concise account of the real Manifest Destiny story, and it expels the myths of the old American History 101 textbook, and the romantic Hollywood cowboy/injun-fighter version of our history. It's a tragic and cruel story, really. It's the true story of the progress of one generation of people at the expense of a civilization. Unfortunately that progress was paved with broken promises, injustice, and lives forever lost.
A Wake-up Call for Americans .......2007-09-05
I just (July 2007) acquired my new copy coming from Amazon. I lost my old copy in 1995. I was not naive about politics and government in 1995. Any scintillas of trust in politics and government,are now gone for even more different reasons. This book seems to keep me awake and keeps my ears wider open to what can happen in this country and this world. It is not just about the shameful and bloody acts in our westward expansion. The word "treaty" from these times is a joke. I can also see more about international expansions. America makes large wrongs, as do other countries do to their own people in history. My heart feels buried because Americans, we, made such innumerable, horrendous and cruel acts. This book remains to me as a great "jolt" to my consciousness. He put together a great example of what America did do to the Native American Peoples. Look at the status of the Native American Peoples who are left today.
Original Eye-Opener.......2007-08-03
This book was and contines to be a wake-up call to the asleep teaching of American History. Especially that of Native Americans and most notably our utter ignorance of our history with Latin America.
A great book.......2007-07-01
Bury my heart at wounded knee is a oustanding account of native american history. Very informative and captivating, piquing my interest in native american's. The words tell of a people heroic,caring,hospitable, and understanding almost pushed to the point of annihilation at the hands of conquistadors,whites and others. Sadness,anger,hate, and sympathy are just some of the feelings brought out by reading this book. If you want an unflinching account of native american history this a great place to start.
bury my heart at wounded knee.......2007-06-27
I was told to read this book as i like to read about american history. this is one of the best book i have read. dee brown really did a lot of backgroud work on it .
Book Description
Today’s most highly regarded writer on Indian food gives us an enchanting memoir of her childhood in Delhi in an age and a society that has since disappeared.
Madhur (meaning “sweet as honey”) Jaffrey grew up in a large family compound where her grandfather often presided over dinners at which forty or more members of his extended family would savor together the wonderfully flavorful dishes that were forever imprinted on Madhur’s palate.
Climbing mango trees in the orchard, armed with a mixture of salt, pepper, ground chilies, and roasted cumin; picnicking in the Himalayan foothills on meatballs stuffed with raisins and mint and tucked into freshly fried pooris; sampling the heady flavors in the lunch boxes of Muslim friends; sneaking tastes of exotic street fare—these are the food memories Madhur Jaffrey draws on as a way of telling her story. Independent, sensitive, and ever curious, as a young girl she loved uncovering her family’s many-layered history, and she was deeply affected by their personal trials and by the devastating consequences of Partition, which ripped their world apart.
Climbing the Mango Trees is both an enormously appealing account of an unusual childhood and a testament to the power of food to evoke memory. And, at the end, this treasure of a book contains a secret ingredient—more than thirty family recipes recovered from Madhur’s childhood, which she now shares with us.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful Mirror of a Childhood spent in Delhi.......2007-08-13
This book brought back wonderful memories of a lovely 6 years spent in India. Her portrait of the lives of the wealthy and privledged of that era were hauntingly familiar. An excellent read.
Enjoyable.......2007-08-09
I know the author by her association with Said Jaffrey, an actor of some repute
in India, and her famous cookery show and books in the same domain.
Apparently, at one time the author was married to Mr. Jaffrey, but has since
divorced and is now re-married to a gentleman in New York and settled in the
same city. I presume she still writes books on Indian cooking. In any case,
the Jaffrey name and the title were enough of a ruse to get me to read the
book. What emerges is a tale of a priviledged childhood in pre-independence
India: her family traces its roots back to the time of emperor Aurangzeb
(the last Mughal ruler of India) in whose court Madhur's ancestors used to
ply their craft as writers. The emperor gifted land to her ancestors in what
would later became New Delhi, enabling Madhur a luxurious childhood by Indian
standards. Her family was well to do: grandfather was a barrister, father
owned mills, the family took trips to Europe and possessed two American cars -- and
this is in pre-independent India, mind you. The book itself is composed of short
chapters, each one detailing some memory of childhood: cousins, siblings, aunts and
uncles, grandparent, summer trips to Simla, train rides, traumas, first love, the
travails of a joint family, etc. A common thread that runs through all the chapters is
the association of food with the memories. Madhur (which means "sweet, honey-like" in
Hindi) draws upon her strength -- food -- to permeate each chapter. The writing
style is informal and colloquial, but enjoyable nonetheless. As an added bonus, the
last portion of the book contain her favorite recipes. (July 2007)
For anyone with an interest in India's complex history, culture, and cuisine........2007-02-06
Any fan of Indian cooking well knows the name of Madhur Jaffrey: in addition to hosting a TV show she's also published numerous cookbooks - and acted in many major motion pictures. Here's something different for the Jaffrey fan: a memoir of how she came to be equated with Indian cuisine in "Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India". Her memoir blends food memories with overall impressions of India's social and political changes, making for a wide-ranging coverage recommended as a pick not just for cooks, but for anyone with an interest in India's complex history, culture, and cuisine.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
A brilliant and delicious memoir.......2007-01-26
I have always loved Madhur Jaffrey's recipes and acting. This memoir, even for those who don't know her, is marvelous. She provides a beautifully-written glimpse of growing up in a large and well-to-do Indian family that mixed Muslim and Hindu traditions in an era that is now past. The description of family foods (and the recipes -- YUM)and the traditions of her family are wonderful. I was terribly sorry when I came to the end of the book, though I was thrilled to find recipes in the back. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in Indian food, Indian culture, or history -- and to anyone who just plain enjoys memoirs.
Delhi reminiscences and recipes.......2007-01-09
My family lived in New Delhi in the late 60s and I enjoyed many vacations with them there. Trips to Agra and the hill stations in the north, to Kashmir and Calcutta. Madhur Jaffrey writes of her childhood in an India before and during partition, a way of life in an India and Delhi that has long since gone. The departure of a huge Moslem community after partition, and the subsequent Punjabi influence created a tremendous change in Delhi's society and food. Her account of her childhood in a "joint family" home was enjoyable, as were her stories of a Delhi when it still held a strong flavor of its Moghul beginnings.
Her book is a light and entertaining read, but the gold is in the last chapter, her family's favorite recipes. I have made two of these dishes already and as usual her recipes produce tremendously authentic Indian taste and texture.
Book Description
For four hundred years--from the first Spanish assaults against the Arawak people of Hispaniola in the 1490s to the U.S. Army's massacre of Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee in the 1890s--the indigenous inhabitants of North and South America endured an unending firestorm of violence. During that time the native population of the Western Hemisphere declined by as many as 100 million people. Indeed, as historian David E. Stannard argues in this stunning new book, the European and white American destruction of the native peoples of the Americas was the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world. Stannard begins with a portrait of the enormous richness and diversity of life in the Americas prior to Columbus's fateful voyage in 1492. He then follows the path of genocide from the Indies to Mexico and Central and South America, then north to Florida, Virginia, and New England, and finally out across the Great Plains and Southwest to California and the North Pacific Coast. Stannard reveals that wherever Europeans or white Americans went, the native people were caught between imported plagues and barbarous atrocities, typically resulting in the annihilation of 95 percent of their populations. What kind of people, he asks, do such horrendous things to others? His highly provocative answer: Christians. Digging deeply into ancient European and Christian attitudes toward sex, race, and war, he finds the cultural ground well prepared by the end of the Middle Ages for the centuries-long genocide campaign that Europeans and their descendants launched--and in places continue to wage--against the New World's original inhabitants. Advancing a thesis that is sure to create much controversy, Stannard contends that the perpetrators of the American Holocaust drew on the same ideological wellspring as did the later architects of the Nazi Holocaust. It is an ideology that remains dangerously alive today, he adds, and one that in recent years has surfaced in American justifications for large-scale military intervention in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. At once sweeping in scope and meticulously detailed, American Holocaust is a work of impassioned scholarship that is certain to ignite intense historical and moral debate.
Customer Reviews:
In answer to conservative pseudointellectuals..........2007-09-24
All of the big words and "references" in the world won't change history for you, unfortunately. I notice that among the people who did not like this book, they all pretty much said the same thing: That Stannard didn't paint an accurate picture of the natives of the western hemisphere. That he didn't acknowledge cannabalism (he did), that he didn't acknowledge human sacrifice (he did - to the tune of 20,000 per year in the Inca capital), and that he didn't acknowledge inter-tribal warfare and cruelty (he most certainly did). One of the reasons I liked this book so much was its extensive reference section (with explanations as to most of the references, so if you have any questions about something...LOOK IT UP). It'd do you all some good, rather than blindly naysaying whatever doesn't fit your racist little mold. Does it really MATTER whether or not native peoples practiced unsavory rituals? They're all dead.
In any case, the book was superb and whatever your views are regarding the native peoples mentioned in the book, one point remains irrefutable: They were exterminated. It was deliberate. It was planned, sanctioned, supported, and financed by every exploratory realm in Europe and by the American government throughout it's short and brutal history. You all know it.
This is one of the most important books that you will ever read in your entire life.......2007-04-29
It is amazing that we live in a country that was built upon holocaust but we yet we are in complete denial. And not just the U.S., the entire Americas. This book discloses the atrocities committed by the Spaniards and and other Europeans. It also dispels the myth that prior to the arrival of Columbus, America was nothing more than open prairie lands. And it reveals that the so-called new world was heavily populated before the mosting devasting and the largest genocide committed in history. It does more than reveal the diseases that the Spaniards and other Europeans brought to the new world. It uncovers the enslavement and intentional massacres of countless natives of the new world. A sad thing about this book is that those who need to read this book most (the ones in denial), will probably never read this book and continue to perpetuate the lie that no holocaust or genocide was ever committed in the Americas by the Spaniards and other Europeans. If you only read one book over the next decade, this should be it.
Simplisitc and sensationalistic.......2007-03-26
Almost every time someone uses the word 'holocaust' when they are not referring to the actual Holocaust between 1939 and 1945, they use it in an incorrect and sensationalistic manner, comparing the incomparible. This is no exception. It is true that millions of people died following the arrival of Europeans in the New World in 1492. However 90% of them died from Disease. This was an extraordinary number, but there is a difference between planning to murder so many and having them die for biological reasons(not being immune to disease). Indeed many of even the most cynical Spaniards were dismayed that the Indians were dying, either because they could no longer be used as slaves or because they could no longer be enslaved. It is rediculous to pretend that this was a 'holocaust' unless the black Plague that swept Europe in the 13th-14th centuries was also a holocuast.
In addition this book accuses the Europeans of 'racism' which is a patent lie. Race did not propell Europeans across the seas in 1492 and the years afterword. It is true that Europeans looked different than the indigenous people of the New World, but it is not true that this was what motivated colonization, ensalvement, war or exploitation.
Just as the rise of most empires, such as the Chinese or Ottoman, are not accused of being tied up in racism, it is comical to pretend that men like Columbus had any concept of the 19th century ideas of race. The notions are neither found in thier writings or documents and that is why none are quoted in this book. In fact many Spaniards defended the Indians, such as Bartholemew De Las Casas, but all those people are conveniently ignored here. Not a suprise.
Seth J. Frantzman
Crimes of Aggression and Occupation Revealed.......2007-03-18
David Stannard reveals the awful truth of Aggression and Occupation, misnamed "Discovery" and "Settlement," in the Americas. Readers who, in the names of education and religion, have been exposed to five centuries of revisionist history should be horrified at the truth. If they aren't, it will be a testament to the effectiveness of the church, school and university propaganda to which they have been exposed. The horrors of other holocausts are not excused by recognition that the holcaust in the Americas, perpetrated by European Christians against ancient civilizations were the most horrible in the history of mankind. They continue to this day.
THE SINGLE FINEST AND MOST ESSENTIAL BOOK OF THE AGE .......2006-06-06
A masterpiece of scholarship and analysis.
This book is nothing less than the single most important work that you will ever read.
Our entire culture is built on Holocaust Denial while those most responsible for this abnesia drape themselves in the flag of holocaust memorialism but have little honesty in their true agenda. An agenda that allows in North America alone for there to be at least 50 Holocaust memorials, museums and monuments...
only problem is they are ALL about the Holocaust that happened in Europe and NOT about the colossal extermination that took place where they live. It is not only denial on the part of the nations of the Americas and Europe but those responsible for this Holocaust Denial in relation to Indian America insist on an image of being the world's caretakers of holocaust memory. What a bloody audacity.
Why do we let the Spanish off the hook so lightly? Why is there no demand for Spain to make its Mea Culpa? Why is there no AMERICAS HOLOCAUST memorial in Madrid, Washington, London and Ottawa ?
This brilliant book re-addresses the imbalance.
POST SCRIPT....
There is a reviewer further down who uses the monica of
"history buff" who rejects the value and integrity of this work. In fact he utterly insults Mr Stannard and his thesis.
So I thought I would check out his other reviews...oh boy!
One of the remarks he makes in a book claiming that Saddam was behind 9/11 goes "But it is very difficult to argue with the facts that were available to the agencies which pointed to a direct link between Saddam and Al Qaeda." This example of his world view is the mild end of it. So people consider the character of the self-described "history buff" who rejects Stannard's brilliant thesis on the Holocaust in the Americas.
The reviewer "history buff" has a world view that comes straight out of the 1950's HUAC committee (he associates all Left wing thought with the Soviet Union not knowing that the Bolshevik regime prohibited the platform of the revolution and that its first victims were in fact the most sincere and dedicated Left revolutionaries. Clearly he has never read the finest autobiography in the history of English language autobiography; Emma Goldman's LIVING MY LIFE volume 1 and volume 2. The latter volume includes a first hand account of the destruction NOT construction of socialism by Lenin and his cohorts ).
.
Book Description
The Elusive Eden charts the historical development of California, beginning with the evolution of the landscape and climate and the arrival of the first inhabitants, the Indians, through social, political, and environmental controversies of the present and the future. The book portrays a land of remarkable richness and complexity, settled by waves of people from diverse cultures. The text is organized chronologically into 10 parts, each developing a major theme or issue for a particular period in California's history. The first chapter of each part is a narrative that spotlights and dramatizes the personal responses of significant individuals at critical moments of historical change. The authors stress issues of current importance such as: ethnic groups, women, environmental history and social and cultural history.
Customer Reviews:
Great Book!.......2007-03-22
I used this book so much in my California and Politics class. It is very descriptive and helpful. The headings make it easy to study, and know exactly what you are reading about. There are lots of interesting pictures, as well as political cartoons. It was a very helpful book in understanding the diverse and colorful history of California. Read it and check it out for yourself.
History of California.......2000-08-08
I had to use this book for a class I took at the University of California, Santa Barbara (History 177 -- Summer 1999). I thought the book was great in certain areas (prehistoric times, geography, and the native peoples), but deficient in others (water development, railroads, Bear Flag Revolt, gold rush, automobile). Also, California's history is much too complicated to be crammed into this book -- the author should have divided it up regionally, or on a time line to allow himself to get more in depth with this material. Otherwise, if you are interested in a good, yet incomplete overview of the history of the Golden State, read this book!
Elusive Eden Captured.......2000-02-15
History can be exciting, especially when the high points are rendered with such immediacy and clarity. California is both a microcosm and macrocaosm of American History. Richard Rice makes this connection resonant from the original Sutter's Mill gold rush to the current Silicon Valley "gold rush". The themes that define California are U.S. history writ large. Rice lets the reader appreciate California from a variety of personal perspectives: Henry Dana's in "Two Years Before The Mast", Leland Stanford and the other "robber barrons", Hiram Johnson and the reformers, into world war two and the Nisei internees, down through Reagan and the Brown family, and into current times. The history of water rights, which was the basis of the movie Chinatown, becomes a compelling and more accurate story here. The lucid prose is admirably supported by evocative photography. Discover California as it really was and is.
Book Description
For over two hundred years no Indian force in America was so powerful and feared as the Iroquois League. Throughout two thirds of this continent, the cry of "The Iroquois are coming!" was enough to demoralize entire tribes. But these Iroquois occupied and controlled a vast wilderness empire which beckoned like a precious gem to foreign powers. France and England secured toeholds and suddenly each was claiming as its own this land of the Iroquois. Alliance with the Indians was the key; whichever power controlled them could destroy the other.
Wilderness Empire is the gripping narrative of the eighteenth-century struggle of these two powers to win for themselves the allegiance of the Indians in a war for territorial dominance, yet without letting these Indians know that the prize of the war would be this very Iroquois land. It is the story of English strength hamstrung by incredible incompetence, of French power sapped by devastating corruption. It is the story of the English, Indian and French individuals whose lives intertwine in the greatest territorial struggle in American history--the French and Indian War.
Customer Reviews:
Great series.......2007-07-28
This is one of the weaker books in Eckert's series, but it was still a good read. I'd recommend it for any Eckert fan, or any other American-History fan. You should definately read the other books in the series!!!
A Dangerous Time in Colonial America.......2007-02-26
Wow! What a book! For anyone interested in studying the French and Indian War period, this is a must read. Although it's not a "textbook" account it's still a lot of fun. I would read this book alongside Francis Parkman's "Montcalm and Wolfe" and Anderson's "Crucible of War". Probably Mr. Eckert's best work. It's really great for younger children or anyone who has forgotten about good old-fashioned American folklore. Fantastic!
History coming alive.......2007-02-12
The best book I have ever read on the French and Indian War. It is utterly amazing how Eckert makes characters from the past come so alive. You really get the feeling that you not only learned about events that happened in the past, but that you get to know the people who experienced them.
Bloody, bloody good.......2006-09-08
Though published in 1969, when attitudes toward Native Americans were just beginning to recover after centuries of demonization, "Wilderness Empire" paints a very balanced picture of the complexities of the American frontier during the period of the French and Indian War. Comprising the formative years of George Washington, Ben Franklin and many of other actors on the American historical stage, this often-ignored historical period was the foundation for the Revolutionary War years that immediately followed. What happened in the 1740s and 50s cemented the reputations and formed the attitudes of those who forged America in the 1770s and 80s.
Eckert does a fascinating job of writing a "semi-fictional" work that relies heavily on the letters and other documents of the players themselves. He claims not to have invented conversations, but to have dramatized them based on the evidence in the primary sources. Of course, this cannot extend to Eckert's descriptions of his characters' state of mind, but he seems to take care to add proper emotional expression to the dry facts where appropriate.
Eckert's tale includes hundreds of characters, but he focuses on the exploits of a few notable ones. William Johnson, the young Irish adventurer become military leader, is at the center of the tale. Johnson seems one of only a few Americans who took the Indians seriously and was subsequently adopted by them. His incredible double life - as a white subject of the crown and as the Indian Warraghiyagey - showed him to be a man of intelligence, subtlety, heart and strength. Other characters - the exquisite French Marquis de Montcalm, a young and inexperienced George Washington, the Mohawk Chief Tiyanoga and New Hampshire's Robert Rogers of Ranger fame - are also featured prominently. This is not due to their later fame as much as to the fact that these were men of great valor and valiant action in their day. Eckert does feature women in his tale, but often they are love partners, slaves or victims. One wonders whether he might have made more of them had he written the book ten years later, when feminist scholarship and sensitivity urged writers to take a closer look at female contributions.
In any event, Eckert's tale is very bloody. Indian atrocities -- including scalping, dismemberment, ritual torture and cannibalism -- get more than their fair share of space. Cannonballs cut men in two and musket fire pierces brains and bodies and leaves men screaming in agony. Eckert does not pass judgment on these actions, though his French and especially his English characters do. At least he attempts to see these practices with native eyes, as the just spoils of warfare, as much due to the victors as the powder and food of the vanquished. But for the reader, the burnings, killings and mutilations do seem to pile up after a while. On the positive side, this gives the reader a chance to appreciate the tenuous nature of life on the New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia frontier. There's enough brutality on all sides to make one glad to live in more peaceful times.
I found "Wilderness Empire" to be a fascinating, if slow, read. The vast array of characters, the difficult Indian names and places, and the complex and convoluted nature of the events makes it difficult to read for pleasure. But in the end, the book was well worth the effort. I now feel I have filled a long-standing lacuna in my historical understanding - the period the led to the American Revolution and set the stage for the white expansion across the continent.
Widerness Empire.......2006-07-04
Second time I have read it the first time was over 25 years ago, it is an oustanding narative of the early days of America detailing important events in the early setteling of our country.
Average customer rating:
- Beautiful story
- The choice
- Fantasict
- you will love this book
- A great childhood book about history
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The Sign of the Beaver
Elizabeth George Speare
Manufacturer: Yearling
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Number the Stars
ASIN: 0440479002
Release Date: 1984-07-01 |
Product Description
. Young Matt is alone in the Maine wilderness awaiting his father's return to their cabin when he is attacked by a swarm of bees. To his surprise, he is saved by an Indian chief and his grandson, Attean. The boys come to know each other, many months pass without a sign of Matt's family. Then Attean asks Matt to join the Beaver tribe. Should Matt abandon his hopes for his father's return and join his new family up north? Paperback.
Amazon.com
When his father returns East to collect the rest of the family, 13-year-old Matt is left alone to guard his family's newly built homestead. One day, Matt is brutally stung when he robs a bee tree for honey. He returns to consciousness to discover that his many stings have been treated by an old Native American and his grandson. Matt offers his only book as thanks, but the old man instead asks Matt to teach his grandson Attean to read. Both boys are suspicious, but Attean comes each day for his lesson. In the mornings, Matt tries to entice Attean with tales from Robinson Crusoe, while in the afternoons, Attean teaches Matt about wilderness survival and Native American culture. The boys become friends in spite of themselves, and their inevitable parting is a moving tribute to the ability of shared experience to overcome prejudice. The Sign of the Beaver was a Newbery Honor Book; author Elizabeth Speare has also won the Newbery Medal twice, for The Witch of Blackbird Pond and The Bronze Bow. (Ages 12 and older) --Richard Farr
Customer Reviews:
Beautiful story.......2007-09-14
This is a great book about a boy who forms a friendship with and Indian boy named Attean, and in fact with his entire family. I found it a pleasure to read, because it offered a different historical perspective than most books that come from the white man's perspective. While Matt was white, most of the book is filled with his interactions with the Indian people. We get a glimpse of how they lived, and how very practical it was as opposed to the white man's way of life. It was more in tune with the land, for sure.
I'm getting off track, but I was very touched by the story. Matt is essentially invited to join the Beaver tribe by Attean and his grandfather, and Attean calls him his brother. The warm acceptance that grew between the two boys was heartwarming, and toward the end it brought tears to my eyes, but not due to sadness; instead due to the love the two boys shared.
The choice.......2007-06-05
This book is about A boy named Matt who builds a cabin with his father and then his father leaves him alone to pick up the rest of his family. Now Matt is alone and puts marks by every day that passes.Then Matt meets an indian named attean and they become friends. Now Matt is teaching Attean to read and write and Attean is teaching Matt how to survive on his own. then time goes by and his dad never returned so Ateean is asking Matt to head north with the beaver tribe and Matt does not know if he should go with Attean or wait for his father.
Fantasict.......2007-05-30
You will think this book is fantastic because it's really interesting to see how the indians live.The beginning of the book starts out kinda of slow but it starts getting really good after the indians save Matt from the bees.My favorite part of the book is when the indians start to like matt because this is the part of the book when Matt starts to learn how to start hunting and becomes friends with Attan
you will love this book .......2007-04-18
You will love this book because this book is an adventurous book. if you like books that envolve the olden days then you will love this book.you will want to read about what happens when the boy sees the hidden beaver signs and when the boy finds out that the indians saved his life.this book showws what could realy happen
A great childhood book about history.......2007-02-10
This lovely book is a great book to show children tolerance between cultures. It is a study of how one boy sees the Native Americans in a positive light. Matt is able to experience friendship, loyalty, and acceptance. I was touched at how the grandfather showed love towards Matt. Also, Attean's final gift to Matt shows how much he thought of Matt-generosity and sacrifice. It is interesting for its historical perspective too, as the work of the Native American woman was shown in this book!! A highly recommended read.
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- My Side of the Mountain
- National Security and The Nuclear Dilemma, 1945-1991
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