Indigenous Continent

The Epic Contest for North America

By: Pekka Hamalainen

Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab

There is an old, deeply rooted story about America that goes like this: Columbus "discovers" a strange continent and brings back tales of untold riches. The European empires rush over, eager to stake out as much of this astonishing "New World" as possible. Though Indigenous peoples fight back, they cannot stop the onslaught. White imperialists are destined to rule the continent, and history is an irreversible march toward Indigenous destruction.

In Indigenous Continent, acclaimed historian Pekka Hämäläinen presents a sweeping counternarrative that shatters the most basic assumptions about American history. Shifting our perspective away from Jamestown, Plymouth Rock, the Revolution, and other well-trodden episodes on the conventional timeline, he depicts a sovereign world of Native nations whose members, far from helpless victims of colonial violence, dominated the continent for centuries after the first European arrivals.

Hämäläinen ultimately contends that the very notion of "colonial America" is misleading, and that we should speak instead of an "Indigenous America" that was only slowly and unevenly becoming colonial. Necessary listening for anyone who cares about America's past, present, and future, Indigenous Continent restores Native peoples to their rightful place at the very fulcrum of American history.

©2022 Pekka Hämäläinen (P)2022 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

An Indigenous view of American history

Great book overall, well overdue. My only criticism is the reader mispronounces many Native words and names. Easy for non Natives to miss (or mispronounce) but the author took the time to get the names correct, and I wish the narrator would’ve as well.

Indigenous Continent indeed

I appreciate authors point of view because I was sort of tired of hearing Indigenous people's history from a victim's point of view. They are the heroes of this story being told - which doesn't necessarily mean that they were without their crimes neither. Nevertheless, the stories detailed in this title show how much Indigenous influence catalyzed and continues to flow in the United States of America.

Authoritative Historical Research

Every American should read this work in order to understand native history as a central component of American history.

A Good Overview of History and decent performance

The author gets a few details wrong here and there, but overall gives a pretty good overview of the history of Indigenous peoples and their interactions with European and later powers, with care given to the Indigenous point of view.
The narrator pronounces a lot of non-English words wrong, including Spanish ones, and it gets very distracting later on when he keeps saying "pee-cos" but his performance is decent.

Understanding the History

Absolutely the most comprehensive book I have ever read on the settling of the US. Exhaustively researched and presented in significant detail it is a strong telling of the 400 year interaction of the indigenous people and the arriving European Dutch, English, French and Spanish settlers. Hamalainen explains the reasoning and expectations of each of these nations allowing for a greater understanding of their initial interaction and the challenges faced by the existing local population. A must read.