Friday, February 2, 2024 – Native Bookshelf: Ned Blackhawk and Craig Santos Perez

Two of the newest National Book Awards winners reinterpret conventional views of their homelands through their unique, Indigenous lenses. Yale historian Dr. Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone) reexamines five centuries of U.S. history in his new book Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History. He explores Native people’s overlooked role from the arrival of Spanish explorers to self-determination. And a collection of experimental and visual poems, from unincorporated territory [åmot], by Dr. Craig Santos Perez (Chamoru) recounts recollections of his homeland of Guam. Åmot is the medicine he invokes to heal colonial traumas. We’ll speak with both of the authors about these new works and the Indigenous histories they rediscover.