Tag: book review

  • “Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools”

    “Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools”

    Mary Anne Pember, Pantheon Books (2025) $29USD, 292 pp.

    In this touching and informative book, journalist Mary Annette Pember beautifully weaves together 150 years of history with her own painful, insightful, and ultimately hopeful memoir. A quote by one of her interviewees – “powerlessness and low self-esteem are not part of our identity as Native people” (p. 229) – pretty much sums up Pember’s thesis, which she briskly proves in under 250 pages. Anyone who feels put off by the idea of reading history books will have no problems finishing this engaging work.


    First introducing us to her mother Bernice through her child’s eye, Pember is able to easily establish the two main threads woven throughout the book: a personal reflection on her own family’s trauma/survival and a historical accounting of Indian Boarding Schools. The first photograph included in the book is of the author herself, four years old, the abused child of a mother with serious mental health challenges, crying in the corner of a room. But it isn’t too long until we learn that her mother was also once an abused and neglected “throwaway kid” who was deeply traumatized by her time in St. Mary’s Mission Indian Boarding School, also known as the Sisters’ School. Essentially abandoned there after violence tore her family apart, Bernice suffered both physical and mental abuse aimed at achieving the American government’s and Catholic Church’s shared goal of “killing the Indian and saving the man.”


    Pember also introduces us to varied Native experiences through her brothers, grandmothers, aunts, and extended family, all of whom experienced the cultural trauma that impacted Ojibwe people and generations of other Native communities. However, she never uses her family as a pathway into telling the story of Indian Boarding Schools, or vice versa. Instead, the author simply and honestly demonstrates the inextricable relationship between the tremendous cultural violence of boarding schools and its legacy on families such as hers. Both strands are equally presented as important for present and future generations to understand.


    Apologies, with varying degrees of sincerity, from the Canadian and American governments and the Catholic Church, are examined by Pember as part of the book’s ruminations on acknowledgement, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Again, she is able to explore those same themes in a more personal way when discussing her family relationships, fractures, wounds, and healing. Who apparently never received an apology or gave an apology was Pember’s mother Bernice. Rarely is an individual woman presented in scholarly historical work with as much care, understanding, and judgment, as well as psychological and historical insight, as Bernice Pember is in “Medicine River.” A truly complicated woman who inflicted seemingly-unforgivable damage on her children is presented through the loving lens of one of those children. As such, we are able to see that in fact Bernice, like all people, was deserving of forgiveness. Who is not is the perpetrators of a near-genocidal colonialism that destroyed Indian individuals and families for generations.


    For educators, all or portions of Pember’s book will be useful in history or sociology classrooms focused on US History, Native American studies, race and identity, social stratification, family dynamics, or the (dys)functions of power. In writing or reading classrooms, professors will likely be able to use Pember’s work as an exemplar of insightful memoir, translating historical research for a popular audience, or meaningfully weaving together multiple stories and perspectives.


    Anyone interested in the historical experiences of Native peoples in the US; the motivations and mechanisms of oppression used by the American government and the Catholic Church; the consequences of generational trauma; forgiveness and reconciliation; or simply gaining insights into one fascinating life story should read “Medicine River: The Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools.”

  • “The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy”

    “The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy”

    Jessica Pishko, Dutton Publishing (2024) $32 USD, 469 pp.

    A great book for people interested in current events and the state of American democracy, “The Highest Law in the Land” is a thoughtful investigation of the county sheriffs, which Pishko rightly identifies as “a gravely under-examined institution.” However, for readers looking to gain historical insight into the growth of police powers in American history, Pishko’s work will likely be underwhelming. 

    The author is upfront about her goals and openly reflexive about her own position, especially when it comes to the rise of so-called constitutional sheriffs. She ends the introduction by proclaiming “I do not want to both-sides the issue. The threat is coming from the right” (p. 11). She supports that assertion with deeply researched and well-reasoned arguments. She meaningfully examines the nearly unchecked power of America’s 3,000+ sheriffs, as well as the role they play in politics, incarceration policies and practices, gun and drug control policies, enforcement of racial hierarchies, the so-called border wars, and the ways in which the elected status of sheriffs is often as ruse. As a person who has lived much of my adult life in a county where the sheriff openly opposed the will of many of his constituents (Sheriff Tracee Murphy and Cannabis Decriminalization in Texas) , I found some of these sections of particular interest. 

    However, as a historian and sociologist interested in historical abuse of police powers in the Jim Crow South (who also keeps up with current events), I found Pishko’s work to be largely political rather than scholarly. I don’t believe this is something she would argue with, rather political analysis is part of her goal. For me though, when I read a blurb about “getting to the root” of something, I anticipate more historical context and analysis. As a result, I was disappointed to learn so little from “The Highest Law in the Land.”

    That doesn’t mean the book is badly written or poorly conceptualized. It will be very useful for readers who want to become better informed about the state of law enforcement and politics in 2020s America.