In Whose Ruins
Written by Alicia Puglionesi
Narrated by Tanis Parenteau
4/5
()
About this audiobook
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 US landscape, from Native American earthworks in West Virginia to the Manhattan Project in New Mexico, this history is a tour of sites that were mined for an empire’s power. Showing the hidden costs of ruthless economic growth—particularly to Indigenous people—this book illuminates the myth-making intimately tied to place. From the ground up, the project of settlement, expansion, and extraction became entwined with the spiritual values of those who hoped to gain from it. Every nation tells some stories and suppresses others, and In Whose Ruins illustrates the way American myths have overwritten Indigenous histories, binding us into an unsustainable future.
Historian Alicia Puglionesi? “makes a perfect guide through the strange myths, characters, and environments that best reflect the insidious exploitation inseparable from American dominion” (Chicago Review of Books). She illuminates the story of the Grave Creek Stone, “discovered” in an ancient Indigenous burial mound; oil wells drilled in the corner of western Pennsylvania once known as Petrolia; ancient petroglyphs that once adorned rock faces on the Susquehanna River, dynamited into pieces to make way for a hydroelectric dam; and the effects of the US nuclear program in the Southwest, which contaminated vast regions in the name of eternal wealth and security through atomic power, a promise that rang hollow for the surrounding Native, Hispanic, and white communities. It also inspired nationwide resistance, uniting diverse groups behind a different vision of the future—one not driven by greed and haunted by ruin.
This deeply researched work traces the roots of American fantasies and fears in a national tradition of selective forgetting. Connecting the power of myths with the extraction of power from the land itself reveals the truths that have been left out and is “a stimulating look at the erasure and endurance of Native American culture” (Publishers Weekly).
Alicia Puglionesi
Alicia Puglionesi is a writer and historian. She earned a PhD in the history of science, medicine, and technology from Johns Hopkins University in 2015 and has taught at Johns Hopkins and MICA. Her first book, Common Phantoms: An American History of Psychic Science, explores how the practices of seances, clairvoyance, and telepathy both questioned and reinscribed social boundaries. She lives in Baltimore.
Related to In Whose Ruins
Related audiobooks
The Pueblo Revolt: The Secret Rebellion That Drove the Spaniards Out of the Southwest Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood Moon: An American Epic of War and Splendor in the Cherokee Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God & Public Lands in the West Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIndigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wilderness and the American Mind: Fifth Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Empire of Shadows: The Epic Story of Yellowstone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thunder in the Mountains: Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, and the Nez Perce War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Night Comes to the Cumberlands Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Gulf South During America's Revolutionary Era Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And Still the Waters Run: The Betrayal of the Five Civilized Tribes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The North-West Rebellion: The History and Legacy of the Native American Uprising against Canada in the Late 19th Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Comanche Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Sovereigns: Sitting Bull & The Resistance of the Free Lakotas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5West Like Lightning: The Brief, Legendary Ride of the Pony Express Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Earth Is All That Lasts: Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and the Last Stand of the Great Sioux Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Edge of the Plain: How Borders Make and Break Our World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChanges in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies) History For You
Wicked New Orleans: The Dark Side of the Big Easy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Odd Fellows' Primer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Maya: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American History: An Enthralling Overview of Major Events that Shaped the United States of America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLife: My Story Through History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tainos and Caribs: The History of the Indigenous Natives Who Encountered Christopher Columbus in 1492 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Underwater Ghost Towns of North Georgia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Bible Verses That Made America: Defining Moments That Shaped Our Enduring Foundation of Faith Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lost Empire of Atlantis: History's Greatest Mystery Revealed Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Dark History of American Presidents: Digitally Narrated Using a Synthesized Voice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mountain Man: John Colter, the Lewis & Clark Expedition, and the Call of the American West Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Zora Hurston and the Strange Case of Ruby McCollum Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution" in the Antebellum South Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Killing of Uncle Sam: The Demise of the United States of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Haitian Revolution: The History and Legacy of the Slave Uprising that Led to Haiti’s Independence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Slavery: History in an Hour Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Modern American History: A Captivating Guide to the Modern History of the United States of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary of John Adams by David McCullough Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Constitution of the United States of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5History of the Conquest of Mexico Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Waco Siege: An American Tragedy: An American Tragedy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wrath to Come: Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5America: The Last Best Hope (Volume I): From the Age of Discovery to a World at War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for In Whose Ruins
2 ratings0 reviews