In OUR HISTORY IS THE FUTURE, author Nick Estes paints such vivid portraits of people and events that he almost makes you feel like you are right there in the thick of the protests and their aftermath. I don't teach creative nonfiction that often, but this is high on my list to use as an example. This book absolutely has the ability to keep changing the minds of readers even five years after it was originally published.

Republished with a new afterword by the author, <i>Our History is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance</i> by Nick Estes continues to be an important work that balances the discipline of history with an accessible narrative. Using the Dakota Access Pipeline protests of 2016 as the key event, Estes expands the narrative to look at the scope of Indigenous American resistance to settler colonialism.

The protest at the Standing Rock Reservation encampment grew to become one of the largest protest movements of the 21st century, with many of the participants taking the name Water Protectors. It showed resistance both in person and politically, making use of the courts and public opinion. This event serves as the gateway to explore over two centuries of history that, if one is honest, should be described as attempted genocide.

Estes work explains the clash of cultures, especially the conflict of private property versus the interconnected-ness of life. The way this conflict occurred in sustained campaigns and specific massacres or battles, the word used depending on the narrator or perspective of survivors. <i>Our History...</i> shows the ways resistance has changed or adapted depending on conditions and possibilities. Despite all the evidence and cases explored it is an optimistic work that believes change is still possible.

The work is strengthened by this new edition by the new afterword that has the author better able to reflect on Standing Rock and the continuing hypocrisy of a USA that espouses ideals, but continually chooses profit and possession over health and the environment.

Recommended for readers and researchers of history, politics, environmentalism, protest or contemporary politics.

I got this as an arc on Netgalley and it has since come out. Absolutely Absolutely recommend. This is a must read. This look into indigenous resistance should be on everyone's tbr.

An excellent re-issue of a book that's been on my to-read list since it first published. I'm glad it finally prompted me to get to it. This part of history needs to be more widely known.