Native Nations: A Millennium in North America
by Kathleen DuVal
DuVal reframes North American history by treating Indigenous nations as central actors across centuries, not footnotes to colonial expansion. The book's scale is ambitious, but it stays grounded in the political realities of diplomacy, conflict, trade, and survival. It challenges familiar timelines and maps, making readers rethink what "America" even means as a historical unit. DuVal is especially good at showing continuity: how nations adapt, persist, and rebuild across ruptures. The narrative avoids romanticisation while preserving the complexity of governance and alliance. It also reads the present back into the past in a careful way, explaining why certain narratives became dominant. The result is both expansive and clarifying. You finish with a more accurate—and more interesting—framework for the continent's past.
