Book Review - Lakota America - A New History of Indigenous Power

Title: Lakota America - A New History of Indigenous Power
Author: Pekka Hamalainen
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍
My Review: I am an absolute fan of books on Native Americans. This book is a fire hose of information and details about Native American tribes from early 16th century to present. As such, it became a little overwhelming. I especially enjoyed the later chapters that described first encounters with white Europeans and the evolution of the various Native American tribes. Overall, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to people who really want to learn more about Native Americans.

 
Description (Audible): This first complete account of the Lakota Indians traces their rich and often surprising history from the early 16th to the early 21st century. Pekka Hämäläinen explores the Lakotas' roots as marginal hunter-gatherers and reveals how they reinvented themselves twice: first as a river people who dominated the Missouri Valley, America's great commercial artery, and then - in what was America's first sweeping westward expansion - as a horse people who ruled supreme on the vast high plains. The Lakotas are imprinted in American historical memory. Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull are iconic figures in the American imagination, but in this groundbreaking book they emerge as something different: the architects of Lakota America, an expansive and enduring Indigenous regime that commanded human fates in the North American interior for generations. Hämäläinen's deeply researched and engagingly written history places the Lakotas at the center of American history, and the results are revelatory.

Description (ChatGPT): Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power reimagines the story of the Lakota people, flipping the script on traditional narratives to reveal a history of resilience, resistance, and sovereignty. With sharp insights and compelling storytelling, this book doesn't just tell the Lakota story — it empowers it, offering a fresh lens on the fight for land, culture, and identity. It’s history, but not as you’ve ever heard it before.

Book Review - By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land

Title: By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land
Author: Rebecca Nagle
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍
My Review: Pending...

Description (Audible): Before 2020, American Indian reservations made up roughly 55 million acres of land in the United States. Nearly 200 million acres are reserved for National Forests—in the emergence of this great nation, our government set aside more land for trees than for Indigenous peoples. In the 1830s Muscogee people were rounded up by the US military at gunpoint and forced into exile halfway across the continent. At the time, they were promised this new land would be theirs for as long as the grass grew and the waters ran. But that promise was not kept. When Oklahoma was created on top of Muscogee land, the new state claimed their reservation no longer existed. Over a century later, a Muscogee citizen was sentenced to death for murdering another Muscogee citizen on tribal land. His defense attorneys argued the murder occurred on the reservation of his tribe, and therefore Oklahoma didn’t have the jurisdiction to execute him. Oklahoma asserted that the reservation no longer existed. In the summer of 2020, the Supreme Court settled the dispute. Its ruling that would ultimately underpin multiple reservations covering almost half the land in Oklahoma, including Nagle’s own Cherokee Nation. Here Rebecca Nagle recounts the generations-long fight for tribal land and sovereignty in eastern Oklahoma. By chronicling both the contemporary legal battle and historic acts of Indigenous resistance, By the Fire We Carry stands as a landmark work of American history. The story it tells exposes both the wrongs that our nation has committed and the Native-led battle for justice that has shaped our country.

Description (ChatGPT): By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land is a passionate, eye-opening exploration of a battle that’s been burning for centuries. With sharp prose and a fierce dedication to truth, this book ignites the untold stories of Native communities fighting for justice—both in the courtroom and on the land. It's a compelling reminder that history isn’t just written in books, but lived in the fires that still burn. If you’re looking for a book that combines history, resilience, and activism, grab a seat by the fire and prepare to be moved.

Book Review - Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce: The Untold Story of an American Tragedy

Title: Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce: The Untold Story of an American Tragedy

Author: Kent Nerburn
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review:  The story of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce is beyond tragic. This is a well written and well researched story on the history of the Nez Perce tribe and how Chief Joseph became a mythical and somewhat reluctant leader in the struggle to maintain their homeland and way of life. I loved this book!

Description (Audible): Hidden in the shadow cast by the great western expeditions of Lewis and Clark lies another journey every bit as poignant, every bit as dramatic, and every bit as essential to an understanding of who we are as a nation - the 1,800-mile journey made by Chief Joseph and 800 Nez Perce men, women, and children from their homelands in what is now eastern Oregon to Montana. There, only 40 miles from the Canadian border and freedom, Chief Joseph, convinced that the wounded and elders could go no farther, walked across the snowy battlefield, handed his rifle to the US military commander who had been pursuing them, and spoke his now-famous words, "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." Drawing on four years of research, interviews, and 20,000 miles of travel, Nerburn takes us beyond the surrender to the captives' unlikely welcome in Bismarck, North Dakota, their tragic eight-year exile in Indian Territory, and their ultimate return to the Northwest. Nerburn reveals the true, complex character of Joseph, showing how the man was transformed into a myth by a public hungry for an image of the noble Indian and how Joseph exploited the myth in order to achieve his single goal of returning his people to their homeland.

Description (ChatGPT): Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce: The Untold Story of an American is a gripping tale of courage, survival, and resistance, as the legendary Nez Perce leader, Chief Joseph, takes on the U.S. Army in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse. It’s the ultimate underdog story—except, spoiler alert, the "underdogs" are the ones with the strategy, the heart, and the spirit of freedom on their side. A must-read for anyone who thinks history is just about battles—and not the battle for what’s right.

Book Review - The Good Rain Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest

Title - The Good Rain Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest
Author: Timothy Egan
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: This book attracted me for several reasons. Number one, it's about the Pacific Northwest, a place that I love and where I have lived for the past 42 years. It's also about subjects that I love including nature, history and Native Americans and was written by Timothy Egan, who is an excellent writter and has written several other books that I love. I love this book and highly recommend it.

Description (ChatGPT): The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest is like taking a road trip through the Pacific Northwest with a poet and a historian who can’t stop talking about rain, the land, and the deep, existential musings of a region that feels both ancient and eerily modern. Author Timothy Egan takes you on a tour through forests, rivers, and the occasional fog bank, blending natural history, human stories, and a healthy dose of environmental angst. It's as if you’re standing on a misty cliff, contemplating the fragility of nature—while also trying to figure out where you left your umbrella. Perfect for anyone who’s ever been drawn to the Pacific Northwest’s moody beauty and complex past... or just wants to understand why it’s always raining.

Book Review - Crazy Horse and Custer

Title - Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors
Author:Stephen E. Ambrose

My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: I love books about Native Americans and this book is one of the better ones I've read. The displacement of Native Americans by white American settlers through manifest destiny was tragic. The majority of the book covers the lives of George Custer and Crazy Horse. The eventual description of the Battle of the Little Bighorn was disappointingly short but overall, I enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

Description (Audible): On the sparkling morning of June 25, 1876, 611 men of the US 7th Cavalry rode toward the banks of the Little Bighorn in the Montana Territory, where 3,000 Indians stood waiting for battle. The lives of two great warriors would soon be forever linked throughout history: Crazy Horse, leader of the Oglala Sioux, and General George Armstrong Custer. Both were men of aggression and supreme courage. Both became leaders in their societies at very early ages; both were stripped of power, in disgrace, and worked to earn back the respect of their people. And to both of them, the unspoiled grandeur of the Great Plains of North America was an irresistible challenge. Their parallel lives would pave the way, in a manner unknown to either, for an inevitable clash between two nations fighting for possession of the open prairie.

Description (ChatGPT): Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors by Stephen Ambrose offers a fascinating (and sometimes bewildering) dance between two men who couldn’t have been more different, yet shared a singular destiny: the American frontier. Ambrose weaves their stories with a historian’s precision, but also a novelist’s flair, showing how the lives of these two warriors—one a fierce Native American leader, the other a brash, doomed cavalry officer—ran in parallel like two trains speeding toward the same tragic collision. It’s a deep dive into history’s contradictions, where heroism and hubris meet in the dust of battle. If you’ve ever wondered how a man can be both a martyr and a fool, this book will clear that up—while reminding you that history isn’t always as simple as "good guys vs. bad guys." Prepare to be enlightened, and perhaps a little mystified, but never bored.

Road Trip - Fort Rock, OR

Fort Rock State Monument, Oregon

Visited Fort Rock State Monument on a recent road trip through central Oregon (scroll down for 3D photos). Fort Rock is an amazing volcanic formation that can be seen from miles away. It was created during the last ice age when lava erupted from a vent in the earth's crust. As the eruption continued, layers of tuff accumulated around the vent eventually building a circular feature or tuff ring that stands about 200 feet high and 4,460 feet in diameter. Fort Rock got Its name from its tall, straight sides that resemble a fort. According to Wikipedia, William Sullivan, an early settler in the area, named Fort Rock in 1873 while searching for lost cattle.

Fort Rock State Monument, Oregon

Over ten thousand years ago Fort Rock was surrounded by a lake with wetlands and wildlife which provided the foundation of life for prehistoric humans. Numerous well-preserved sagebrush sandals, ranging from 9,000 to 13,000 years old have been discovered in the area making it the earliest evidence of humans in North America.
Sources: Wikipedia & Fort Rock State Monument visitor information

3D Photo of Fort Rock State Monument, Oregon

Aerial 3D Photo of Fort Rock State Monument, Oregon

Road Trip - Burney Falls, CA

Burney Falls

On the second day of our road trip to southern California, we paid a visit to the McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park. Established in 1922, McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park is the second oldest park in the California State Park system. The park is best known for the spectacular 129-foot tall Burney Falls.To the people known today as the Pit River Indians, Burney Falls, or 'uts' i mi' wa, is a sacred place. Some say that President Theodore Roosevelt called the falls "the eighth wonder of the world." The McArthur family believed so strongly that the falls should be protected that they purchased the land and water rights and then sold them to the state for preservation as a park.