Wounded Knee: Party Politics etc etc

[grahamew]

Anyone read this? It's a fascinating in-depth look at the political machinations behind the urge to rip up the 1868 treaty, the partisan politics that led to corruption on the reservations, the political motivation behind the push for more land and, ultimately, the army's presence during the Ghost Dance, but when she gives the inevitable potted history of the wars out west, she's a little careless. The Apache and the Comanche threatening the Union Pacific in the southwest? Her view of Lakota politics needs to be rather more nuanced too - as nuanced as her look at white politics.

[Californian]

hi Grahame, yes, I read this book when it first came out in 2010 and its contents were eerily paralleling the events of U.S. domestic politics at the time. I corresponded multiple times with the author, Prof. Heather Cox Richardson discussing and comparing the past and then current events. It is definitely a MUST READ and certainly an eye opener casting a different, wider picture on the events that lead up to the Wounded Knee massacre that the usually more localized viewpoints of past writings on the subject. The book was of course immediately criticized by conservatives for supposedly conveying a distorted, biased picture. But the facts are all there and well documented and the author placed all of it into context and hence the proverbial big picture emerged. It all makes totally sense. The political maneuverings and tactics used back in the late 1880's to preserve power of one or the other party have not changed and are still applied today - example: artificially gerrymandering of district boundaries to ensure election or re-election of a specific congressional candidate. Go figure ! Time to wake up really.