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

Rediscovery includes illustrations that pair Ned Blackhawk’s historical analysis with relevant imagery. Pick one such image and offer a thorough visual reading through the lens of the book’s content. How does this image contribute to your understanding of Blackhawk’s arguments?

As a revisionist history, Rediscovery aims to challenge preexisting historical narratives about the United States and some of its most revered figures. Identify one preconception about US history that you had before reading the book and explain how Blackhawk’s analysis responded to it. Did you adjust your understanding after reading the book? Why or why not?

The modern field of Indigenous studies owes much to early works such as Custer Died for Your Sins by Vine Deloria Jr. (1969), which Blackhawk addresses in Chapter 12. Read that foundational manifesto and compare its ideas with those put forward in Rediscovery. How do these two texts illustrate the development of Indigenous studies?