Clearing the Plains New Edition: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Indigenous Life

by James Daschuk

Paperback, 2019

Status

Available

Call number

971.2

Genres

Politics, Government, Law and Public Policy

Publication

University of Regina Press (2019), Edition: 2, 386 pages

Description

"This new edition of Clearing the Plains has a forward by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Elizabeth Fenn, and explanations of the book's influence by leading Canadian historians. Called "one of the most important books of the twenty-first century" by the Literary Review of Canada, it was named a "Book of the Year" by The Globe and Mail, Quill & Quire, the Writers' Trust, and won the Sir John A. Macdonald Prize, among many others."--

User reviews

LibraryThing member b.masonjudy

As the blurbs will tell you Clearing the Plains is a necessary history of the impact of disesase and starvation on First Nations people in Canada. It's necessary because it demonstrates that the presence of colonists and the proliferation of the fur trade were massive components to the spread of

these epidemics in a way that was incidental, that is, without intentional malice. The malice comes later, of course, with the ethnic cleansing, withholding of treaty rights, and aforementioned starvation. As with other books on this topic, the sheer number of the dead is overwhelming and difficult to process.

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