MAIN IDEA:

This is probably the best book about the history of America, not as the history of the United States but the history of the northern part of the continent in which the English-speaking tribe of newcomers from Europe gradually, over the period of centuries, became the dominant tribe of the continent after fighting other European French and Spanish speaking tribes, all of them being allied with various local Indian tribes up until the near end of the struggle. Here is the author’s definition of the main idea of this book:” It offers a new account of American history by challenging the notion that colonial expansion was inevitable and that colonialism defined the continent, as well as the experiences of those living on it. Stepping outside of such outdated assumptions, this book reveals a world that remained overwhelmingly Indigenous well into the nineteenth century. It argues that rather than a “colonial America,” we should speak of an Indigenous America that was only slowly and unevenly becoming colonial. By 1776, various European colonial powers together claimed nearly all of the continent for themselves, but Indigenous peoples and powers controlled it. The maps in modern textbooks that paint much of early North America with neat, color-coded blocks confuse outlandish imperial claims for actual holdings. The history of the overwhelming and persisting Indigenous power recounted here remains largely unknown, and it is the biggest blind spot in common understandings of the American past.”

MY TAKE ON IT:

I think this book goes a long way in disassembling many ideological myths about the history of America. Either old myths, based on the ideology of white racial and cultural superiority, or new myths, based on the ideology of white racial and cultural inferiority, distort and diminish the real history of America. In reality, it would be meaningless to seek signs of superiority or inferiority between peoples and civilizations that were developing differently. Qualitatively, Euro-African and American civilizations were approximately equal, about 60 to 80 million people each before encounter. However, land available for human sustenance in America was multiple of that in Europe. Therefore, forces pushing the switch from a hunter-gatherer and/or low-intensity agriculture way of life were much weaker in America, leaving people with much more humane conditions of life with a lot less need for military-technological development for survival. It is not surprising that by all accounts, Europeans who were captured and adopted into a more humane Indian culture preferred to remain in this culture even if they had the opportunity to go back to European civilization. It is also unsurprising that European civilizations of much more intensive agriculture and dependence on military competition had better military technology. Consequently, initially, representatives of European civilizations in America were happily embraced by local tribes as valuable allies despite their negligible numbers. The question of who was dominant in these alliances probably would be answered differently in different cases. Still, up until the latest part of the period from 1492 to 1880s, it was mainly cases of some newcomers and locals fighting other newcomers and locals rather than newcomers fighting locals. It would be nice if the understanding of real history led to the embrace of common humanity and the elimination of all racist ideologies. Still, since as many people are making as good a living now from promoting anti-white racism as other people used to make from promoting anti-black and anti-indian racism in the past, it will take a while before these junk ideologies are fully left behind.