Sunday, February 8, 2015

Recent Great Reads

Every so often I come across readings I find wonderful and worth telling other people about.  I picked up a copy of Studs Terkel's book "American Dreams: Lost and Found" the other day and came across one of the most moving and informative accounts of what Native Americans have been through.  The book is organized around about 100 conversations Terkel had with various people he encountered as he traveled across the country.  As I go through this book, I'll probably post mention of other section, but I was deeply moved by what native American Ramona Bennett had to say (pages 171 - 178).

The feeling of history usually gets lost in impersonal summaries and statistics, but here you have the point of view of an intelligent woman who has not only gone through a bit of native-American history but who sums up a lot of it for us from her perspective.  Maybe you have been left feeling just about nothing when you've heard what native Americans have gone through due to prejudice and murderous treatment on the part of whites.  This will change all that.  This one entry is worth the price of the book.

[American Dreams: Los and Found, by Studs Terkel, Pantheon Books, New York, 1980]
 
 


No comments: