Lakota America

Pekka Hämäläinen is the Rhodes Professor of American History and Fellow of St. Catherine’s College at Oxford University. He is the author of The Comanche Empire, winner of the Bancroft Prize, and Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America.

“Impressive. . . . Lakota America takes us from the sixteenth century to the present, with painstaking, carefully marshaled detail, but its real feat is in threading how the Lakota philosophy and vision of the world guided their reinventions and their dealings with colonial powers. . . . Hämäläinen has the novelist’s relish for the strange, pungent detail . . . [in this ] accomplished, and subtle, study.”—Parul Sehgal, New York TimesNamed one of the New York Times Critics’ Top Books of 2019“A brilliant, bold, gripping history.”—Simon Sebag Montefiore, London Evening Standard, Best Books of 2019“[A] profound history of the Lakota people. . . . Hämäläinen’s book emphasizes that to understand American history it is vital to understand Lakota—and, by extension, Native American—history. . . . Lakota America joins, and in many respects leads, a growing body of work centered on single-tribe histories through which we can see, for the first time, the wild making of America.”—David Treuer, New York Review of Books“Turned many of the stories I thought I knew about our nation inside out.”—Cornelia Channing, Paris Review, Favorite Books of 2019“A comprehensive history of the tribe.”—The Economist“You’ll catch something roiling beneath that professional composure: a lively truculence that gives this book its pulse, and its purpose. Pekka Hämäläinen’s impressive history is also a quarrel with the field, with how history—especially the history of indigenous Americans—has been told and sold.”—Parul Sehgal, International New York Times“There are comparative lessons here about the vulnerability that can lie behind apparent power and the strength that comes from apparent weakness.”—David A. Nichols, Reviews in HistoryCHOICE Outstanding Academic Titles, 2020Finalist in the PROSE Awards North American and U.S. History category, sponsored by the Association of American PublishersLonglisted for the 2020 Cundill History Prize, sponsored by McGill University Shortlisted for the Mark Lynton History Prize, sponsored by the Columbia School of Journalism and the Nieman Foundation.Winner of the Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize, sponsored by the Center for Great Plains Studies“Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse live in history as great warriors. Hämäläinen’s brilliant exploration of the history and culture of the people that produced these two men is destined to become a classic.”—Annette Gordon-Reed, Harvard University“Deeply researched, epic in scale, interpretatively adventurous, and ambitious, Lakota America will influence historians for years.”—Richard White, Stanford University“Like the Lakotas he studies, Pekka Hämäläinen is a shapeshifter. He is nuanced, nimble, and wise, with an uncanny capacity for reinvention as new understandings come to light. The result is stunning. To read Lakota America is to rethink American history itself.”—Elizabeth Fenn, University of Colorado, Boulder“Lakota America is beautifully researched, persuasively argued, and justifiably audacious in its reach and implications. It is both a landmark in American Indian history and a provocative rethinking of North American history generally.”—Elliott West, University of Arkansas