READING GUIDE
American History
Ned Blackhawk: The Rediscovery of America
Blackhawk’s 2023 National Book Award winning history proposes a re-examination of indigenous and colonial history to the present in a fresh model of dynamic interaction, centering his framework on “encounter” over the old tropes of “discovery.”
What this means for readers is a re-centering of the discussion of indigenous agency—neither absent or victims—through the American story, contributing some of the most significant and lasting ideas to our democracy and identity.
Not a summary of the book, this guide is a chapter-by-chapter reflection on my “white guy” wrestling with these changes, but also includes a larger glossary of Blackhawk’s terms which might better assist readers in engaging his history. For those without any background in indigenous history or those who learned the American education system, a resource for taking on Blackhawk’s compelling work.
Also, available in the fall of 2026, a complete written version of the glossary, complete with citations connected to Blackhawk and other sources for review, study, or as a resource for an AI research tool.
The Rediscovery of America Reading Guide
Pervasive violence and dispossession are more than sidebars or parentheses in the story of American history. They call into question its central thesis. The exclusion of Native Americans was codified in the Constitution, maintained throughout the antebellum era, and legislated into the twentieth century: far from being incidental, it enabled the development of the United States. U.S. history as we currently know it does not account for the centrality of Native Americans.
Encounter—rather than discovery—must structure America’s origins story.
Pre-Reading
Blackhawk and Why We Must Read
Glossary Terms Added:
- epistemological shift
- interpretative tools
- indigenous absence
Transcript
Introduction
A New History
Glossary Terms Added:
- tropes of discovery
- settler colonialism
- dialectics of transformation
- survivance
Transcript
Glossary Terms Added:
- indigenous agency
- hidalgos
- ethnogenesis
- genizaros
- indigenous settler colonialism
Transcript
“. . . a dialectic of Indian-newcomer relations that developed over centuries of interactions, bringing new communities together in inextricable and enduring ways.”
“Finding answers to the challenges of our time—racial strife, climate crisis, and domestic and global inequities, among others—will require new concepts, approaches, and commitments. It is time to put down the interpretive tools of the previous century and take up new ones.”
Bibliography
Blackhawk, Ned. The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmasking of U.S. History. Yale University of Press, New Haven, 2023.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.Cite these videos and transcripts with MLA format:
Chisnell, Steve. “Reading Guide: Ned Blackhawk’s The Rediscovery of America.” Waywords Studio, 2026, https://waywordsstudio.com/project/blackhawk-rediscovery-of-america/.
