The Unquiet Grave : The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country, by Steve Hendricks ($7.58).
[I was introduced to this book by a friend, who is the author's uncle. I've been interested in the situation of native Americans since reading Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee a number of years ago -- so many that I have one of the original HB copies. Besides being an interesting story, I greatly admire, and deeply envy, the quality of the author's prose. -- rls]
Amazon sez: Investigative journalist Hendricks significantly updates the story of the American Indian Movement (AIM) to reclaim civil and treaty rights, which has been generally underreported and lacked substantial book-length treatment since Peter Matthiessen’s In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983). Bracketed by the 1976 murder of AIM activist Anna Mae Aquash and the 2004 trial related to it, Hendricks’s swift narrative is riddled with judicial travesties, coverups, vigilantism, COINTELPRO-style tactics, mounting paranoia and lawlessness on both sides, as activists and ordinary American Indians confront the devastating neglect and outright hostility of government authorities. Based on reams of newly released official documents (many the result of the author’s own Freedom of Information Act lawsuits) and interviews with many surviving actors and witnesses, the book’s committed journalism doesn’t leave its sympathies in doubt, while also holding AIM’s militants responsible for their actions. Hendricks is careful throughout this harsh, heart-thumping account never to lose sight of the larger context. “Aquash,” he persuasively reminds us, “was murdered because the government of the United States waged an officially sanctioned, covert war on the country’s foremost movement for Indian rights.”: Investigative journalist Hendricks significantly updates the story of the American Indian Movement (AIM) to reclaim civil and treaty rights, which has been generally underreported and lacked substantial book-length treatment since Peter Matthiessen’s In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983). Bracketed by the 1976 murder of AIM activist Anna Mae Aquash and the 2004 trial related to it, Hendricks’s swift narrative is riddled with judicial travesties, coverups, vigilantism, COINTELPRO-style tactics, mounting paranoia and lawlessness on both sides, as activists and ordinary American Indians confront the devastating neglect and outright hostility of government authorities. Based on reams of newly released official documents (many the result of the author’s own Freedom of Information Act lawsuits) and interviews with many surviving actors and witnesses, the book’s committed journalism doesn’t leave its sympathies in doubt, while also holding AIM’s militants responsible for their actions. Hendricks is careful throughout this harsh, heart-thumping account never to lose sight of the larger context. “Aquash,” he persuasively reminds us, “was murdered because the government of the United States waged an officially sanctioned, covert war on the country’s foremost movement for Indian rights.”
A Kidnapping in Milan: The CIA on Trial « Atascocita Presbyterian Church Book Club said
[...] that this book is to be released in October, 2010. See my previous recommendation by this author. — rls] Amazon sez: Exceptionally well written and deeply reported—a gripping [...]