HIST-1006-002 Fall 2021

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Reading Journal 3
November 19, 2021

Why You Can't Teach US History Without American Indians is a strong book that

asks educators to analyze their role in eliminating American Indian countries and people

from the history they teach. While acknowledging the challenge of avoiding the

narrative imposed by US history textbooks, the authors urge educators to reevaluate

their reliance on those volumes.

Book argues that U.S. history cannot be taught without American Indians. It

argues that Native nations provided the conditions for the formation of the United

States. The book's writers argue that American Indian people and nations are erased

from history in all but the most symbolic ways.

The book is divided into two sections, American History from 1877 and American

Indians in the New Deal. An essay by John L. Laukaitis makes a useful distinction

between the American Indian sovereignty movement of the 1960s and 1970s and the

Civil Rights movement.

Section three focuses on rethinking the entire US survey path, rather than

specific periods in time. In essays on settler colonialism, federalism, and global

imperialism, authors propose concrete ways to reconsider timeframes and narratives.

All revenues will go to the D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous

Studies at the Newberry Library. The funds will allow Native academics use the library's

enormous American Indian history collections, enriching future reimagining’s of the

American history survey course. This is a worthy goal that supports the book's purchase
 HIST-1006-002 Fall 2021

by educators and libraries, as well as its use in undergraduate and graduate history

classrooms.