Author Talk: "The Chosen and the Damned: Native Americans and the Making of Race in the United States"

Learn about the central role of race in Native American and United States history from the colonial era to the modern period

Join Arlington Public Library and George Washington University Professor David J. Silverman for a presentation featuring his latest work, "The Chosen and the Damned: Native Americans and the Making of Race in the United States."

The book traces how Euro-American and Native American racial identities were formed and contested over four centuries, including colonial wars, the creation of reservations and boarding schools, and modern Native activism. Themes include the construction of White and Native identity, the effects of racial ideology on national policy, and the resilience and resistance of Native peoples. The work situates Native Americans as integral to understanding U.S. racial history.

David J. Silverman is a professor of history at George Washington University. He is the author of the award-winning "This Land Is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving," as well as "Thundersticks, Ninigret, Red Brethren, and Faith and Boundaries." His essays have appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Washington Post, National Geographic, and the Daily Beast. He lives in Washington, D.C…