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

When Europeans first arrived in the “new world,” they met entire populations for whom the Americas were not new at all. Historian David J. Silverman argues that from the moment Europeans set foot on the continent and in the four centuries since, the relationship between white Americans and Native Americans has played a defining role in our national history. Through colonial wars for territory and the “Manifest Destiny” that included the removal and extermination of tribes, through the Red Power movement of the 1960s, Silverman places Native people firmly in the center of the American narrative for a new understanding of race and identity in this country.

David J. Silverman is a professor of history at George Washington University and the author of several books, including The Chosen and the Damned: Native Americans and the Making of Race in the United States. Steven Hahn (moderator) is a professor of history at New York University and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose most recent book is Illiberal America: A History.