The heartbeat of Wounded Knee

Description

Growing up Ojibwe on a reservation in Minnesota, training as an anthropologist, and researching Native life past and present for his nonfiction and novels, David Treuer has uncovered a different narrative. Because they did not disappear – and not despite but rather because of their intense struggles to preserve their language, their traditions, their families, and their very existence – the story of American Indians since the end of the 19th century to the present is one of unprecedented resourcefulness and reinvention. In this book, Treuer melds history with reportage and memoir. Tracing the tribes’ distinctive cultures from first contact, he explores how the depredations of each era spawned new modes of survival. The devastating seizures of land gave rise to increasingly sophisticated legal and political maneuvering that put the lie to the myth that Indians don’t know or care about property.