The Chosen and The Damned: Native Americans and the Making of Race in the United States

Author:   David J. Silverman
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:  

9781635578386


Pages:   512
Publication Date:   10 February 2026
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Not yet available   Availability explained
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

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The Chosen and The Damned: Native Americans and the Making of Race in the United States


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Full Product Details

Author:   David J. Silverman
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Imprint:   Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9781635578386


ISBN 10:   1635578388
Pages:   512
Publication Date:   10 February 2026
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available   Availability explained
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

Table of Contents

Reviews

A wide-ranging consideration of Indigenous people in a nation driven by white supremacist ideology . . . A charged argument for fully including Native Americans in America’s racial history. * Kirkus Reviews * An absorbing look at the complex relationship between Native Americans and race. * Booklist * I have taught Native American history for thirty years and have always maintained that despite the injustice and the horror of it, we are not looking at a case of attempted genocide. Silverman’s book made me change my mind. It is a powerful work of the highest order. * Camilla Townsend, author of FIFTH SUN: A NEW HISTORY OF THE AZTECS * Drawing on deep research, weighing evidence carefully, and refusing easy answers, Silverman places Indigenous peoples at the core of Americans ideas about race and national identity—and therefore at the core of the national story. Especially in these times when fundamental historical meanings are deeply contested, everyone should read this wise, humane, and disturbing book. * Daniel K. Richter, author of author of BEFORE THE REVOLUTION: AMERICA'S ANCIENT PAST * From colonial times to present-day controversies about “Who is an Indian,” David Silverman traces the central role of Native Americans in the ugly, messy, and violent history of race and racism in America. Euro-Americans developed a collective identity as “civilized Whites” that drove and justified the destruction and dispossession of “savage Indians”; Indigenous peoples adopted “Indian” as a shared identity that distinguished them from and bolstered resistance to their genocidal and land-hungry oppressors. Readers may be discomfited by this bold and sweeping history, or take issue with some of its interpretations, but no one should ignore it. * Colin G. Galloway, author of THE INDIAN WORLD OF GEORGE WASHINGTON: THE FIRST PRESIDENT, THE FIRST AMERICANS, AND THE BIRTH OF THE NATION * An eye-opening and masterfully crafted book. David Silverman dismantles the myth that Native peoples were a doomed race, while insisting that their stories are the core of the American story. * Andrew Lipman, author of SQUANTO: A NATIVE ODYSSEY * In this powerful and wide-ranging work, David J. Silverman weaves discussions of race formation and racism into a highly readable narrative history of North America's Indigenous peoples. A powerful, important and provocative book that will force considerations of the many paths not taken in American history. * Michael Oberg, author of NATIVE AMERICA: A HISTORY * An ambitious and convincing book that lays bare the way White Europeans and Americans, for over 400 years, have used White constructs of race, white supremacy, and racism as ideological justifications for genocidal actions and policies against American Indians. Full of woe, violence, race-making, racism, and Native resilience, this is the story at the heart of America. * Robbie Ethridge, author of FROM CHICAZA TO CHICKASAW: THE EUROPEAN INVASION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE MISSISSIPPIAN WORLD, 1540-1715 * An ambitious and convincing book that lays bare the way White Europeans and Americans, for over 400 years, have used White constructs of race, white supremacy, and racism as ideological justifications for genocidal actions and policies against American Indians. Full of woe, violence, race-making, racism, and Native resilience, this is the story at the heart of America. * Robbie Ethridge, author of FROM CHICAZA TO CHICKASAW: THE EUROPEAN INVASION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE MISSISSIPPIAN WORLD, 1540–1715 * David Silverman writes with clarity and grace about complex, sensitive, and often sorrowful events. The Chosen and the Damned gives readers powerful new insights into the history of racialist and racist ideas in America. * James D. Rice, author of TALES FROM A REVOLUTION: BACON's REBELLION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF EARLY AMERICA *


""David J. Silverman delivers [the story] in astonishing detail . . . His pointed, lucid prose makes his book as deeply engaging as it is sobering."" --Boston Globe on THIS LAND IS THEIR LAND ""An eye-opening, vital reexamination of America's founding myth."" --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) on THIS LAND IS THEIR LAND ""Highly recommended."" --Booklist (starred review) on THIS LAND IS THEIR LAND


Author Information

David J. Silverman is Professor of History at George Washington University. He is the author of the award-winning This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and Troubled History of Thanksgiving (Bloomsbury, 2019), as well as Thundersticks, Ninigret, Red Brethren, and Faith and Boundaries. His essays have appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Washington Post, National Geographic, and the Daily Beast. He lives in Washington, D.C.

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