Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas: Jeffrey Ostler

Surviving Genocide: Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas – Jeffrey Ostler – 9780300255362 – Yale University Press – Paperback – 544 pages – September 22, 2020 – $25 – ebook versions available at lower prices

“A landmark book essential to understanding American history, Surviving Genocide is an act of courage. Ostler’s brilliant concept of reconstructing ‘an Indigenous consciousness of genocide’ is significant for its insight into how American Indians understood, discussed, and resisted genocidal threats to their families, communities, and nations. His modern vocabulary of ‘atrocities’ and ‘killing fields’ is not for political effect but appropriate to the brutal reality of Indian policy in American history.”—Brenda Child, Northrop Professor of American Studies, University of Minnesota

Even though many of us feel we are familiar with the story of the “settling” of America by Europeans and the dispossession of indigenous people, reading Jeffrey Ostler’s book, part one of a major two-volume history, will educate every single one of us to a better understanding of the full scope of the takeover of a continent by invading Europeans. Conquest and genocide are terms we seem unable to apply to our own history, preferring still a more sanitized version of the centuries long overwhelming of the people who lived here before Europeans arrived in force.

Ostler has spent years of research documenting the governmentally sanctioned use of force to remove or kill the indigenous people who were inconveniently in the way of the relentless expansion of the American republic. In this book he documents the losses from the violence – massacres, destruction of habitat and lifeways, diseases and cultural upheaval suffered sequentially by native peoples for hundreds of years as first colonial settlers and then Americans flooded the continent. This volume covers the story of the eastern United States from the 1750s to the beginning of the Civil War that set the stage for the post-Civil War expansion that is perhaps the better known narrative – buffalo, horses, trains, Crazy Horse and the Lakota being so much a part of popular culture imagery. As Ostler shows, the way this played out was not “inevitable” and Manifest Destiny was neither. The indigenous people were outnumbered, but often not out maneuvered or outwitted, and their ability to survive the nightmares of dispossession and attempted genocide is heroic.

As Americans, it is sometimes difficult to look at our own history with honesty. It is often said that the “original sin” of America is slavery, but I think we must grapple with the actuality that there are two essentially economic-based social and cultural wounds at the heart of the American project. First, there is the forced dispossession of the people who were on the land itself, and second, the forced migration and enslavement of Africans for the benefit of white Americans and their economic development. We must learn as much as we can about the history of the last five hundred years in North America in an unromanticized, clear-eyed effort to fully comprehend what our forebears did in the course of creating the American dream all of us are allowed thereby to enjoy. The truth in all its complexity should serve as counterweight to the false narratives and self-serving images we choose to live by, all created as a form of ongoing social control.

Indigenous people have survived despite the many attempts to extirpate them or to forcibly transform and bend their cultures into the conquerors’ image of what “civilization” looks like. Still, the traumatic effects of conquest need to be recognized, acknowledged and repaired and it would be no small thing to recognize formally that a genocide was in play, with all the social and political results that term carries with it. This book and presumably the subsequent volume in Ostler’s work, should help us move in that direction.

The book is well written, hard to put down and completely engrossing; its authoritative and well-researched approach makes it a powerful document and well worth your time to read.

I’m grateful for Jeffrey Ostler for taking the time to talk to me about this book and for Yale University Press for alerting me to it.

Jeffrey Ostler is Beekman Professor of Northwest and Pacific History at the University of Oregon and the author of The Lakotas and the Black Hills and The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism from Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee.

Buy the book at Bookshop.org

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Steve Steinberg: Urban Shocker: Silent Hero of Baseball’s Golden Age

Urban Shocker: Silent Hero of Baseball’s Golden Age – Steve Steinberg – University of Nebraska Press – Hardcover – 9780803295995 – 352 pages – $32.95 – ebook versions available at lower prices – April 1, 2017

Even avid baseball fans may be forgiven for not knowing much about Urban Shocker, one of the best pitchers of major league baseball’s early modern era. It is no surprise that Shocker is not as famous as he could and should be. Shocker’s best years were spent in St. Louis, playing for the perennially mediocre Browns. And his time as a Yankee teammate of Babe Ruth was tragically cut short by ill health. Furthermore, he was a star player at a time when baseball was much more of a local sport – no television to memorialize his achievements – his face and skill as a pitcher is virtually invisible to us, now almost 100 years since his glory years.

Steve Steinberg is a talented baseball historian and writer. His work in uncovering the story of this undeservedly ignored pitcher is admirable. Baseball history can be a rich vein to mine, but it requires talented and dedicated individuals to do the incredibly time consuming work of research, and then to transform those details into a compelling narrative arc. Steinberg succeeds in both respects, and with this fine book, he brings Urban Shocker to life for contemporary readers.

Even if you are not a diehard baseball fan, Shocker’s life reveals a great deal about baseball and its players as part of the culture and daily life of America in the immediate post World War I (Roaring Twenties) era. Baseball players lived much more difficult lives than their modern descendants, it seems. And of course, the business of baseball was very different then – players were tied to their teams for life, and had very little control over their own destinies. While they were paid well compared to the average worker of the day, in relative terms, their paychecks were not usually life changing and most players had to work other jobs during the off seasons.

Little is known of Shocker’s early life, and he did not make it to the big leagues until he was in his early twenties. Like many players of the day, his path to success was not an easy one. And once he reached the majors, playing for the Yankees before their great success years, he was quickly traded away to the St. Louis Browns in 1918. It was not until 1925, after four straight seasons with at least twenty wins for the lowly Browns that Urban was finally traded back to the Yankees. He finally had the opportunity to play in  the World Series with the 1926 Yankees.

In the almost mythological 1927 season, often considered to be among best in baseball history, Shocker pitched brilliantly to compile 18 wins against only 6 losses, this at a time when his skills were clearly in decline. Shocker was suffering from a then incurable heart disease that would kill him less than a year later. He kept his illness to himself, and managed to excel as a pitcher using his years of experience to substitute for physical dominance before he finally had to quit the game altogether, surprising the baseball world at the time.

Steinberg has given us a deftly written, detailed and sensitive portrait of a complicated man, whose brilliant baseball career was cut all too short. I enjoyed reading this compelling biography immensely – it brought me back to a period of baseball history I have long been interested in – and I had a great time speaking with author Steinberg about this book and his work in baseball history.

Steve Steinberg is known as a baseball historian of the early 20th century. He was fortunate to have sold a family business, allowing him to explore a new career as a baseball writer. He focuses his work on portraying long-forgotten players, bringing them to the attention of contemporary baseball fans and readers. He is the author or co-author of several books and many articles, including with Lyle Spatz, 1921: The Yankees, the Giants, and the Battle for Baseball Supremacy in New York. Steve’s web site is a wealth of baseball history. He lives in Seattle with his wife, Colleen.

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