Lakota America

Pekka Hämäläinen's history of the Lakota runs from the early sixteenth century to the early twenty-first. It follows them from marginal hunter-gatherers through two reinventions: first as a river people who controlled the Missouri Valley, a major commercial artery, and then as a horse people who ruled the high plains in the first great westward expansion in America. Red Cloud, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull appear as builders of a lasting Indigenous regime in the North American interior. Hämäläinen argues that the Lakotas belong at the heart of the American story. The New York Times critics named it one of their top books of 2019.

Tyler Cowen chose it as one of his two top picks for the best non-fiction of 2019.