A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling Over the Memory of Sand Creek

By Ari Kelman

Book Overview

On November 29, 1864, over 150 Native Americans, mostly women, children, and elderly, were slaughtered in one of the most infamous cases of state-sponsored violence in U.S. history. Kelman examines how generations of Americans have struggled with the question of whether the nation's crimes, as well as its achievements, should be memorialized.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674045858
• ISBN13: 9780674045859
• Release Date: February 2013
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 379 Pages
• Weight: 1.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

A Thoughtful Treatment of the Past Century and a Half at Sand Creek

This book covers the initial events of the Sand Creek Massacre as well as efforts to establish the Sand Creek Massacre Site. It’s engaging and deals with questions about who gets to tell history, effects of tourism in small towns, and the real importance of location at a historic site. The people in this book are vividly portrayed and the author navigates two hundred years of American history very clearly. It would probably be best to have a bit of knowledge about the Sand Creek Massacre before reading this book, because it is not organized chronologically. But it is an engrossing and thought-provoking book. And as for the historicity, Dr. Kelman is a history professor at UCD and the book won the Bancroft Prize for history in 2014.