Good evening.

Welcome.

And thanks for watchin PBS Kansas and Inside the Cover.

Tonight I want to discuss a book I recently finished, one I found to be an informational and important read.

It is now time to go inside the cover.

Tonight's book is The Rediscovery of America by Doctor Ned Blackhawk.

I was alerted to this boo by an article in the Winter 2025 edition of Kansas Histor A Journal of the Central Plains, which is a collaboratio of the Kansas Historical Society and the Department of History at Kansas State.

Docto Blackhawk is an enrolled member of the Te-Moak tribe of the Western Shoshone.

He grew up an urban Indian in Detroit.

He graduated from McGil University in Montreal in 1992.

He earned his master's in history in 1994 from UCLA, and a PhD in history from the University of Washington in 1999.

He was on the facult at the University of Wisconsin from 1999 to 2009.

Blackhawk then joined the faculty at Yale University, where he is affiliated with the History and American Studies departments.

He is married to NYU Professor of Law Maggie Blackhawk.

His first major book Violence Over the Land: Indians and Empire in the Early American West, was published in 2006.

The Rediscovery of America was published in 2023, and it received the 2023 National Book Award for nonfiction.

In this book, Doctor Blackhawk interweaves five centuries of native and non-native histories.

He emphasizes the centrality of Native American history to an understanding of the United States.

And in amazing detail and specificity, he illustrates the full and lasting impact of this history on the how, why, and when of the development of the United States While making a forceful argument for the importance of indigenous peoples to the understanding of the United States, he opens with the key question: How can a nation founded on the homeland of dispossessed indigenous people be the world's most exemplary democracy?

Have no doubt.

This is a serious and scholarly work.

There are 101 pages of supportive footnotes.

However, I nevertheless found it to be a very readable book.

I am also quite chagrined to admit that it was only throug reading this book that I learned of the American Indian Institute that was operative in Wichita from 1915 to 1935.

The institute was founded by Doctor Henry Roe Cloud, a Yale graduate, and it served as a college prep school for native males.

It was located on an 80 acre campus on land that now sits just north of the WSU campus off of 21st Street.

For more information on the institute see the graduate thesis of WSU student Hannah Forker, which was published in 2025.

Also see a story written b KMUWs Carla Eckels at kmuw.org.

That's our show.

Tonight's book has been The Rediscovery of America by Doctor Ned Blackhawk.

If you enjoy reading America history and you are interested in the developmen of our country-- In this regard, I must suggest that this is a relevant and thought provoking read.

As the USA is busily engaged in celebrating the grand and glorious aspects of its 250 years of existence, reminding us of the not so pleasant, dare I say, shameful aspects of the foundation of these United States.

Thanks for watching.

Until the next time, keep reading, keep thinking, and be well.

I hope to see you next time right here on PBS Kansas.