M&D related

Doug Millison DMillison at ftmg.net
Thu Jul 5 16:43:36 CDT 2001


http://www.calendarlive.com/top/1,1419,L-LATimes-Books-X!ArticleDetail-37124
,00.html
excerpt:
"The fate of the Delaware chief White Eyes, who tried to persuade Congress
to create a 14th state in the Ohio country as a refuge for Indians and was
murdered by white settlers who feared he might succeed, demonstrates an
aspect of the complicated, tragic effect of the revolution on native
peoples. [...] But even more problematic, for general readers as well as
historians, is what happens to any story when the teller omits, or even
places in brackets, the question of why. It would be an unsatisfying
detective novel that revealed the identity of the murderer but stopped short
of explaining why he or she pulled the trigger. Similarly, history that
stops short of a full and self-consistent explanation leaves any reader
rummaging through whatever odds and ends of information are at hand trying
to fill in the blank, wishing for more. [...] Complicated as it may have to
be in explaining cause-and-effect relationships, a people's history must
have a unifying argument, or a plot, of its own for the reader to measure
against the argument of the dominant narrative. Failing that, no matter how
fascinating and revealing its components may be, a "people's history" will
risk becoming nothing more than a series of footnotes to a hegemonic story
that it cannot supersede."



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