American history and self-understanding have long depended on the notion of a "colonial America", an era that-according to prevailing accounts-laid the foundation for the modern United States. In Indigenous Continent, the acclaimed historian Pekka Hamalainen shatters this Eurocentric narrative by retelling the four centuries between first contacts and the peak of Native power from Indigenous points of view. Shifting our perspective away from Jamestown, Plymouth, the American Revolution and other well-worn episodes on the conventional timeline, Hamalainen depicts a sovereign world of distinctive Native nations whose members, far from simple victims of colonial aggression, controlled the continent well into the nineteenth century, fundamentally shaping the actions of the European imperialists and the development of the United States. Indigenous Continent restores Native Americans to their rightful place at the very fulcrum of American history.

About the Author
Pekka Hamalainen is Rhodes Professor of American History at the University of Oxford and the author of The Comanche Empire, winner of the Bancroft Prize, and Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power. He lives in Oxford, England.

Reviews
"[A] towering achievement. By gathering the experiences of multiple Native peoples-across an astounding expanse of time and space-Indigenous Continent explodes the view that American history unfolded inexorably according to European and American design." -- Andrew Graybill - The American Scholar
"[M]agisterial . . . the pace and the scope of the book have a force of their own: Hamalainen makes it clear that America's past is crazily, energetically, tumultuously crowded with incident; that Indigenous power has affected everything about America . . . I can only wish that, when I was that lonely college junior and was finishing Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, I'd had Hamalainen's book at hand. It would have helped me see that there was indeed a larger story: that my civilization hadn't been destroyed; that my tribe's contribution to the past wasn't merely to fade away in the face of history; that Native peoples-for better or for worse-made this country what it was, and have a role to play in what it now struggles to be." -- David Treuer - The New Yorker
"[T]he single best book I have ever read on Native American history, as well as one of the most innovative narratives about the continent." -- Thomas E. Ricks - The New York Times Book Review
"Mr. Hamalainen's book provides a useful introduction to a vast history..." -- Kathleen DuVall - The Wall Street Journal
"The author, an Oxford historian, recasts the history of North America from a Native American perspective, making clear that Native tribes controlled the continent for millenniums ('On an Indigenous time scale, the United States is a mere speck'). One of the best books ever written on Native American history." -- The New York Times Book Review
"Indigenous Continent, by the Oxford-based Finnish historian Pekka Hamalainen, looks at the US from a distance-and sees something that others have neglected. There are numerous other books about Native American history, but few that have made it so central to the American story as a whole. Here, the indigenous people aren't just the objects of nonindigenous violence" -- Prospect
"What could be more exciting than a book upending everything you thought you knew? Better yet if that book is peppered with interesting facts and written in a pacey, intriguing style by one of the finest minds of his generation: Pekka Hamalainen" -- Joy Porter - BBC History Magazine


Awards
Long-listed for ALA Carnegie Medal 2023.



Book Information
ISBN 9781631496998
Author Pekka Hamalainen
Format Hardback
Page Count 592
Imprint Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publisher WW Norton & Co
Weight(grams) 957g
Dimensions(mm) 244mm * 165mm * 41mm