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"Presents the first major biography of an unsung yet remarkable Indian leader"--Jacket.
The Figure of Kit Carson strides through the literature of the American West in heroic size. Trader, trapper, scout, brigadier general of New Mexico Volunteers, and many other things besides, he has appealed to the public imagination as no other frontiersman has. Many biographies and who versions of his “autobiography” have been published. Yet much of the legend still remains to be separated from the facts, declares the author of this new biography. “I am an admirer of Carson,” says Mr. Carter, “and have no wish deliberately to debunk him, but I am interested in correcting the statements of uncritical hero worship many by many writers.” Kit is allowed to speak for himself, as far...
Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore investigates American origin stories -- from John Smith's account of the founding of Jamestown in 1607 to Barack Obama's 2009 inaugural address -- to show how American democracy is bound up with the history of print.
Challenges the myth that the American national state was weak in the early days of the republic and provides a new narrative of American expansionism.
History has portrayed Christopher "Kit" Carson in black and white. Best known as a nineteenth-century frontier hero, he has been represented more recently as an Indian killer responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Navajos. Biographer David Remley counters these polarized views, finding Carson to be less than a mythical hero, but more than a simpleminded rascal with a rifle. Kit Carson: The Life of an American Border Man strikes a balance between prevailing notions about this quintessential western figure. Whereas the dime novelists exploited Carson's popular reputation, Remley reveals that the real man was dependable, ethical, and—for his day—relatively open-minded. Sifting through th...
A broad exploration of the colonial roots of global capitalism and the worldwide quest of Indigenous people for liberation through decolonization.
Kit Carson aimed his rifle and fired, killing an elk. The young scout walked over to bag his prize. Without warning, two grizzly bears emerged from the trees. Carson managed to escape the bears but lost the elk. Scouts like Kit Carson had to be ready for anything on the western frontier. Americans eager to move west needed help to get there. While famous explorers often got the credit for discovering trails and creating maps, they could never have done it without the leadership of scouts. Author Jeff Savage explores the fearless scouts, who opened up the West for others to follow.
The study of USA's on-going failure to achieve true racial integration, Bind Us Apart shows how, from the Revolution through to the Civil War, white American anti-slavery reformers failed to forge a colour-blind society.
Embracing the crossroads that made the region distinctive this book reveals how American families have always been characterized by greater diversity than idealizations of the traditional family have allowed. The essays show how family life figured prominently in relations to larger struggles for conquest and control.
This book, the third in a series on forgotten battles, challenges some of the most sacred myths taught in American schools. One is the concept that the US Constitution was conceived by idealists for the public good. New research, however, shows that most of the Founding Fathers were strongly motivated by their own financial self-interest and a desire to suppress highly democratic state legislatures that had provided relief to citizens facing taxes that were triple the rate charged under British rule. Turning Points also presents a fresh perspective on Indian tribes in Ohio and Indiana, who defeated two American armies sent to deny their claims to land that had been told was theirs forever. M...