Reviews and Comments

Compared to other books examining Black or Native American history, this one is much more probing in the questions it asks, as well as in its refreshing, original prose. I wish the book was twice as long - there are some events that are strangely glossed over while others that receive much more detailed consideration and are better for it. Other historical accounts would disagree with some of the conclusions here, which are ideologically-driven to a level that I'm not comfortable with in an academic book. If you're looking for an entry point into US history, however, this is a good place to start.

This book is beautifully written, and since I'm Jewish it hit very close to home. The profound impact of Judeo-Christian philosophy on how we view disability is difficult to overstate, and Watts Belser methodically reviews the voluminous writings on this topic to illustrate how complex and varied interpretations can be of religious writings. Through it all, she demonstrates how central disability is to the human condition, even in these religious texts, how often it is swept away, and how important it is to re-examine our view of disability.

I think this book will still be good even if you're not Jewish, but if you are you're definitely going to get more from it. Highly recommend

This book deftly mixes personal stories with an introduction to a wide variety of Native American creation stories, cultural practices, foodways, agricultural practices, and epistemologies (seriously). I also appreciated the academic botanical knowledge that Kimmerer brings here adds a solid additional dimension to the book. I was hoping for much less of a focus on the anecdotal stories here, but if that's what you're looking for you'll like the book even more than I did.

"The United States is a crime scene," one of the quotes from this excellent book, gives you a sense of how Dunbar-Ortiz approaches US history. This book focuses on the profound injustices and immorality of how European colonizers and the inheritors of their project interacted with indigenous people, underlining the hypocrisy of much of the US's founding myths. Most of the book reviews this history from prior to the 20th century - if you're looking for a deeper analysis on more recent events I'd recommend "The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee." Overall this book makes a great addition to the US history canon, highly recommend

Attempts to identify biological roots of race, an inherently socially defined phenomena, goes back centuries. Roberts traces those roots here, leading to modern genetic science and fundamentally flawed attempts to use quantitative methods to claim objectivity. This book systematically deconstructs those attempts, identifying the real harms that they cause and charts paths forward for genetic science that leaves the concept of race to the social sciences.

Unfortunately this book still resonates deeply, despite the fact that it was written in the middle of the Obama administration. Roberts is incredibly prescient here, hypothesizing that the current framework of race-driven genetics will further deepen existing systematically racist systems. This work is important not just for those in the biological sciences, but folks in management and technology that use analogous methods. Highly recommend

This book combines personal stories and holistic analyses of the discourse around a whole host of disabled communities to convincingly advocate for a reframing of how we conceive of people with disabilities and design technologies that lead to better outcomes. The sections on the issues with framing of disabilities are especially compelling.

There are some broader pontifications against capitalism that are a bit distracting, but overall this is a great, quick read on an important topic. Highly recommend

Camilla Townsend has weaved together numerous historical accounts to provide a thorough examination of the history of the Aztecs (Mexica). This is particularly challenging because prior to contact with Spanish colonizers very little was recorded about this civilization. Townsend is intellectually honest about the process of stitching a variety of sources together - explaining where an account came from, its bias, and likely reliability - and combines them into an engaging narrative.

For those looking to understand the context of colonialism in Mexico and Central America more broadly this is a book that I can highly recommend