The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History

Historical revisionism is a method of historical analysis that reassesses the accuracy of established scholarly or popular narratives of history. As its title suggests, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of US History is concerned with deconstructing Eurocentric narratives of US history that ignore the influential role that Native Americans have played in all aspects of North American life since before European arrival. The ethic of historical revisionism was at the heart of Blackhawk’s acceptance speech for the 2023 National Book Award for Nonfiction:

The subject of American Indian history, while often simultaneously unfamiliar and discomforting, is also a shared experience that touches us all. The currents of the past run deep and inform the topography of the present […] Native America is also a form of our national inheritance. We cannot, nor should not, continue its systematic erasure (“Ned Blackhawk Accepts the 2023 National Book Award for Nonfiction for The Rediscovery of America.” YouTube, uploaded by National Book Foundation, 17 Nov. 2023).

The book’s revisionist methodology challenges scholars and the American public to adopt a new understanding of US history that more equitably incorporates Native Americans. Historical revisionism is a scholarly method with a broad social purpose; works like Rediscovery are not intended to remain confined within the insular world of academia.