About this Event
Join us to hear Dr. Blackhawk discuss the hidden history of 20th Century Native American activism. Drawn from the last chapters of the National Book Award-winning study, "The Rediscovery of America," this talk offers insights into the hidden histories of Native American activists whose lives and legacies helped to reshape the American Century. Arguing that we cannot fully understand the making of contemporary American society without focus upon Native nations and their citizens, this presentation offers entryways into the now vibrant study of Native Americans in modern U.S. history.
This event will take place at Central Library, in the auditorium on Level 1. The event will be followed by a book-signing. Books will be available from Elliott Bay Book Company.
Please note: Doors open at 6:30pm. Registration will hold your seat until 6:50pm at which time we'll open available seats to unregistered patrons.
About the Speaker:
Ned Blackhawk is the Howard R. Lamar Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University, where he serves as the faculty coordinator for the Yale Group for the Study of Native America. A graduate of McGill University, he holds graduate degrees in history from the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Washington. He is the author and co-editor of four books in Native American and Indigenous history, including "Violence over the Land: Indians and Empires in the early American West." His articles and review essays have appeared in the New York Times Book Review, American Quarterly, Reviews in American History, The American Historical Review, Ethnohistory, and The American Indian Culture and Research Journal, among others. An enrolled member of the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone Indians of Nevada, he lives in New Haven.
About "The Rediscovery of America":
Winner of the 2023 National Book Award in Nonfiction • Finalist for the 2023 Los Angeles Times Book Award in History • Winner of 2024 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Nonfiction • Winner of the 2024 Mark Lynton History Prize
“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.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Seattle Public Library-Central Library, 1000 4th Ave, Seattle, United States
USD 0.00
