In Whose Ruins: Power, Possession, and the Landscapes of American Empire

In this "first-rate work of historical research and storytelling" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), four sites of American history are revealed as places where truth was written over by oppressive fiction-with profound repercussions for politics past and present.

Popular narratives of American history conceal as much as they reveal, presenting a national identity based on harvesting treasures that lay in wait for European colonization. In Whose Ruins tells another story: winding through the ...