An unspeakable Sadness - Book Report/Review Example

This dispossession was viewed differently by these two groups of people; the Euro-Americans held the view that they had a right to takeover the lands in order to use it properly. The Indians on the other hand felt that the loss of their homeland was a total disaster as it also meant losing their identity and history. The purpose of the book is very well stated and achieved by the author. David J. Wishart employed the use of maps and graphs and other primary sources to convey the human, ecological, and spatial repercussions of dispossession.

He used maps to show that the Indian societies were restricted to the smaller territories that were of no strategic importance to the European-Americans. In these territories, the American policies of social control were very dominant as the need for suppressing the Indians was the major objective of the occupants. The graphs are used in the book to serve as the base line for the narrative where the trends in the decline in living standards are well analyzed to highlight the effects of the dispossession process.

He supports his arguments with pragmatic substantiation in order to bring out the message clearly to the audience. The examples given for instance like how much the Indians were paid for their lands clearly expressed how ruthless the European-Americans were and their ill intentions. . David J. Wishart suggests that the geographic dispossession of the Indians led to an unspeakable sadness. The loss of their ancestral land and history meant that their lifestyle was completely going to change. They were restricted to the reserves and the federal policy was only enacted to suit the European-Americans at the expense of the Indians.

Q: How might Wishart’s focus contradict/enforce the well known ideologies of “Manifiest Destiny” or “right of conquest”? David J. Wishart’s approach didn’t contradict the well known ideologies of “Manifest Destiny” or “right of conquest”. In fact on the contrary it did enforce it as the European-Americans used force to acquire the lands and they claimed that it was their right because they were going to use the land properly. This implied that the Indians didn’t know how to use the land and only they could do that.

Q: Why did Wishart organize the chapters they way he did? The organization of the chapters was done this way so as to allow for the events that are closely related to follow each other. This smooth transition of chapters allows the reader to easily connect the events and comprehend the manner in which the European-Americans conducted business with ease. Q: Being in Nebraska, and knowing the power of place, how might readers in other areas of the US be impacted by Wishart’s book? The readers in the other areas of the United States might be impacted after reading this book because of the way David J.

Wishart organizes his work. He uses all the evidence available at his disposal to express his ideas without biasness and prejudice. The emotional evocation that is felt throughout the book clearly makes the readers