Description
'Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Indigenous Life' is a compelling history of the role of government-sponsored policy that lead to the overwhelming loss of life of Indigenous People of the Plains region from the late 1700s to the late 1800s. This is the new edition of the 2013 work with the title 'Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life (ISBN 9780889773400). Historian and professor of kinesiology and health studies, James Daschuk spent two decades refining his PhD dissertation into a concise, clear, and well-researched volume that connects the roles of diseases brought by Europeans with the efforts of politicians and bureaucrats to the devastation of the peoples of the Plains. This book documents the environmental, economic and political forces that resulted in the current health crisis for Indigenous peoples. This includes such infectious diseases as smallpox but also diseases that took hold as the 19th century wore on, such as tuberculosis, which had roots in the prolonged malnutrition of First Nations that depended on the declining bison herds as well as the new Dominion of Canada’s failure to meet treaty commitments. An excellent history that is a gripping read about First Nations of the Plains and the so-called settlement of western Canada. Highly recommended.