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Capehart

Ned Blackhawk on ‘The Rediscovery of America’

Capehart

The Washington Post

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.61.4K Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this conversation first recorded for Washington Post Live on April 27, Yale University professor Ned Blackhawk discusses his new book, “The Rediscovery of America: Natives Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History,” which explores the foundational role Native Americans have played in U.S. history, including in the formulation of our country’s Constitution, and how their presence and contributions are frequently overlooked, or worse, erased.

Transcript

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0:00.0

On Jonathan K. Parton, welcome to K-Part. When and where does the story of America start?

0:06.2

And who constitutes its central caste? That is among the central questions in an important

0:11.9

new book entitled, The Rediscovery of America, Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History.

0:19.1

Yale University Professor Ned Blackhawk presents a compelling history of this nation

0:24.1

that includes the often overlooked, if not erased, foundational role Native Americans played

0:30.4

in U.S. history. In this conversation, first recorded for Washington Post Live on April 27th,

0:36.9

Professor Blackhawk explains why encounter rather than discovery must structure America's origin

0:43.0

story. The importance of Native Americans in the formulation of the U.S. Constitution and what

0:49.0

he hopes his students and readers take away from this book.

0:57.4

So back in January, the post dubbed your book among the books to read in 2023,

1:04.3

noting that it, quote, invites us to reconsider our received stories. What inspired you to re-evaluate

1:12.5

the stories we've been taught about Native Americans and the formation of the United States.

1:20.0

I've been teaching Native American history since 1999 and have been studying it for nearly all

1:27.8

of my adult life. And I've never ultimately felt sufficiently satisfied with not only many kind

1:37.8

of commonplace understandings of the subject that pervade the academy that exist in popular culture

1:45.9

or are found in other institutional spaces, but also couldn't ever sufficiently find a kind of

1:53.6

common course book or set of materials to make sense of some of the unifying themes that expand

2:01.6

across the many centuries of Native American history. There's been since that initial moment of

2:08.3

teaching a profusion of scholarly and academic work in the field and I've been trying as best as I

2:14.4

can to kind of stay conversant and active in these conversations and felt the need to kind of bring

2:23.2

it together in some kind of overarching form that draws upon what I'm calling the rediscovery

2:30.2

of America, an academic and intellectual rediscovery or unearthing that currently is underway among

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