It’s extremely rare that an author’s thesis is so
powerful and compelling that it completely overturns how you view the past.
Such
is the case in Pekka Hamalainen’s rich narrative history of North America,
offered from the perspective of Native Americans. “The history of the
overwhelming and persisting Indigenous power,” Hamalainen writes, “remains
largely unknown, and it is the biggest blind spot in common understandings of
the American past.”
Many of us were taught that the European conquest of North
America was inevitable, but Hamalainen shows this wasn’t true. His discussion
of the Five Nations in the 17th century is a perfect example of the
power of Native Americans to effectively resist the colonizers from Europe.
This outstanding book covers 400 years of history in a fresh and provocative
way.
American history and self-understanding have long depended on the notion of a "colonial America", an era that-according to prevailing accounts-laid the foundation for the modern United States. In Indigenous Continent, the acclaimed historian Pekka Hamalainen shatters this Eurocentric narrative by retelling the four centuries between first contacts and the peak of Native power from Indigenous points of view. Shifting our perspective away from Jamestown, Plymouth, the American Revolution and other well-worn episodes on the conventional timeline, Hamalainen depicts a sovereign world of distinctive Native nations whose members, far from simple victims of colonial aggression, controlled the continent well into the…
The central story of this Pulitzer
Prize-winning book is the murder of a Seneca man by two white settlers in the
backwoods of Pennsylvania in 1722.
It reads like a thriller, while also
revealing profound insights about European colonization in North America during
the early 18th century. Ironically, the English authorities were
inclined to punish the white settlers severely for the crime in order to
appease the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee. The Native American leaders felt
differently, however, preferring to forgive the two men.
“Native peoples,”
Eustace writes, “subsume issues of guilt and punishment beneath efforts to
redress anguish of victims, acknowledge remorse of perpetrators, and above all
reestablish communal bonds.” This is a fascinating account of Indian and
European views on justice.
In the winter of 1722, on the eve of a major conference between the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee (also known as the Iroquois) and Anglo-American colonists, a pair of colonial fur traders brutally assaulted a Seneca hunter near Conestoga, Pennsylvania. Though virtually forgotten today, the crime ignited a contest between Native American forms of justice-rooted in community, forgiveness, and reparations-and the colonial ideology of harsh reprisal that called for the accused killers to be executed if found guilty. In Covered with Night, historian Nicole Eustace reconstructs the attack and its aftermath, introducing a group of unforgettable individuals-from the slain…
Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 with a
force of several hundred thousand soldiers was one of the greatest events in
human history.
Its epic nature inspired Tolstoy’s War and Peace and has
been the subject of countless nonfiction books. Adam Zamoyski does a fine job
of telling an enjoyable story, while also accurately assessing the campaign.
Napoleon had been extremely confident—perhaps too confident—saying, “A
shattering blow dealt at the heart of the empire on Moscow the great, Moscow
the holy, will deliver to me in one instant that whole blind and helpless
mass.” He was mistaken in his prediction. Napoleon seized Moscow, but the
Russians refused to give in.
Most readers know what happened next, but
nevertheless will be eager to read about the fate of Napoleon’s Grand Armée.
Adam Zamoyski's bestselling account of Napoleon's invasion of Russia and his catastrophic retreat from Moscow, events that had a profound effect on European history.
In 1812 the most powerful man in the world assembled the largest army in history and marched on Moscow with the intention of consolidating his dominion. But within months, Napoleon's invasion of Russia - history's first example of total war - had turned into an epic military disaster. Over 400,000 French and Allied troops perished and Napoleon was forced to retreat.
Adam Zamoyski's masterful work draws on the harrowing first-hand accounts of soldiers and civilians on…
Captain
Ulysses S. Grant, an obscure army officer who was forced out of the service for
alcohol abuse in 1854, rose to become general-in-chief of the United States
Army in 1864. What accounts for this astonishing turnaround during this
extraordinary decade? Was it destiny? Or was he just an ordinary man benefiting
from the turmoil of the Civil War to advance to the highest military rank?
Grant’s life story is an almost inconceivable tale of redemption within the
context of his fraught relationships with his antislavery father and his
slaveholding wife. This narrative explores the poverty, inequality, and
extraordinary vitality of the American West during a crucial time in our
nation’s history.
