Overview

On a hot June morning in 1975, a fatal shoot-out took place between FBI agents and American Indians on a remote property near Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in which an Indian and two federal agents were killed. Eventually, four members of the American Indian Movement were indicted on murder charges in the deaths of the two agents. Leonard Peltier, the only one to be convicted, is now serving consecutive life sentences in a federal penitentiary. Behind this violent chain of events lie issues of great complexity and profound historical resonance. In this controversial book, Peter Matthiessen brilliantly explicates the larger issues behind the shoot-out, including the Lakota Indians' historical struggle with the US government, from Red Cloud's war and Little Big Horn in the nineteenth century to the shameful discrimination that led to the new Indian wars of 1970s. This powerful book was censored and kept off the shelves for eight years because of one of the most protracted and bitterly fought legal cases in publishing history.

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9781433288593

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Reviews

Narrator Mark Bramhall can pronounce the extensive vocabulary of American Indian languages, and his voice brings to mind what modern Caucasians might imagine to be the speech patterns of eighteenth-century Native Americans trying to speak English. -- AudioFile By the time I had turned the final page, I felt angry enough...to want to shout from the rooftops, 'Wake up, America, before it is too damned late!' For Matthiessen, in this extraordinary, complex work, powerfully propounds several large and disturbing themes which the white majority in America will ignore at extreme peril. -- Washington Review A book of enormous importance...You have to believe that Crazy Horse would have loved its renegade spirit and unflinching reach for the truth. -- Milwaukee Journal Meticulously researched...A courageous document. -- Boston Globe A giant of a book...Indescribably touching, extraordinarily intelligent. -- Los Angeles Times Book Review An important and angry book that belongs on the shelf containing A Century of Dishonor, Custer Died for Your Sins, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. -- Wallace Stegner, New Republic

Narrator Mark Bramhall can pronounce the extensive vocabulary of American Indian languages, and his voice brings to mind what modern Caucasians might imagine to be the speech patterns of eighteenth-century Native Americans trying to speak English. -- AudioFile Meticulously researched...A courageous document. -- Boston Globe By the time I had turned the final page, I felt angry enough...to want to shout from the rooftops, 'Wake up, America, before it is too damned late!' For Matthiessen, in this extraordinary, complex work, powerfully propounds several large and disturbing themes which the white majority in America will ignore at extreme peril. -- Washington Review An important and angry book that belongs on the shelf containing A Century of Dishonor, Custer Died for Your Sins, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. -- Wallace Stegner, New Republic A giant of a book...Indescribably touching, extraordinarily intelligent. -- Los Angeles Times Book Review A book of enormous importance...You have to believe that Crazy Horse would have loved its renegade spirit and unflinching reach for the truth. -- Milwaukee Journal

Author Information

Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014) was the author of more than thirty books, including the New York Times bestseller The Snow Leopard. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1974. He was cofounder of the Paris Review and won two National Book Awards, the 2000 Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities, and the 2010 Spiros Vergos Prize for Freedom of Expression. Mark Bramhall has won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration, more than thirty AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has repeatedly been named by AudioFile magazine and Publishers Weekly among their Best Voices of the Year. He is also an award-winning actor whose acting credits include off-Broadway, regional, and many Los Angeles venues as well as television, animation, and feature films. He has taught and directed at the American Academy of Dramatic Art.

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