The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of US History by Ned Blackhawk
Published 2023 · 616 pages · 170,000 words · about 10 hours at an average pace · History, Politics & Society
How hard is The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of US History to read?
The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of US History scores 40 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 42 out of 100
- Blackhawk writes in clear academic prose with legal and historical terms like sovereignty, termination and removal, but never leans on jargon. It is harder than Atomic Habits yet plainer than a theory-heavy monograph.
- Sentence structure: 42 out of 100
- Sentences are measured and declarative, with occasional long clauses stacked with names and dates. The prose is more direct than Doctor Zhivago and close to a well-edited trade history.
- Abstraction: 45 out of 100
- The argument rests on concrete events: treaties, massacres, wars and court cases. The larger claims about nation and sovereignty stay tied to those cases.
- Information density: 68 out of 100
- The book covers five centuries, dozens of Native nations and several colonial empires, with a dense sequence of names, laws and dates on nearly every page. It demands sustained attention but stays organized by chapter.
How The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of US History is regarded
The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of US History holds a literary regard score of 64 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.
Prizes
- National Book Award for Nonfiction 2023, winner