What Makes an Empire?

Did Native Americans defeat their colonizers? A new book says "kinda."

According to a new history, the French were minor participants in the French & Indian Wars, which were really fought between rival Native empires

For the lovely folks at The American Conservative, I reviewed a new book on Native American history called Indigenous Continent. You should read it over there, while it’s out from the paywall.

It’s a bit strange that the eminence grise on Native American history is a Finn named Pekka Hämäläinen who teaches at Oxford, but he is the man, garnering a profile in the NYT recently (how often does that happen to academic historians?). Indigenous Continent leverages that status to make a quite revisionist argument: that Native nations and empires successfully resisted colonial incursions, and did plenty of colonizing of their own, until almost the 20th century.

Hämäläinen does a mixed job of proving his case - in my view, it’s too broad of an argument, although it holds up for specific Native empires (the Iriquois, Lakota/Sioux, and Comanche chief among them). If you’re interested in Native American history, I’d recommend his previous opus, Lakota America, which I also reviewed: it’s sharper.

In related news, the USDA is trialing a fix to the food stamp equivalent program on Native reservations, which is great.

santi ruiz @rSanti97

Fantastic news: The USDA is reforming its food distribution program on Native reservations.

buff.lyAfter a Fraught History, Some Tribes Finally Have the Power to Rethink ‘Commodity Foods’The USDA’s Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) is both loved and reviled. Now, seven tribes have the opportunity to bring more fresh, local, traditional foods to their communities.

I also wrote a section of this newsletter about the “were there already horses in America when colonists arrived"?” debate, but Google Docs lost it, along with a fantastic links section. I remind myself that God is good everyday and everyday God is good.

The TLDR: conventional wisdom has held horses originally evolved in North America, but crossed the Bering land bridge into Eurasia and disappeared until the arrival of the Spanish. Hämäläinen bases much of his theory on this conventional wisdom, arguing that the arrival of the horse transformed the technological basis of indigenous empires, enabling force projection over astonishing distance. He describes his grand research project as “exploring the role of expansionist equestrian regimes in world history.”

But some recent historiography and archaeology claims that horses were here the whole time, and that conventional wisdom is a colonial imposition. I’m not qualified to judge the claims, but if true they pose major problems for Indigenous Continent.

This sure looks like a horse, right

Reading

Why did autofiction happen, and how can we kill it?

“Wombats were the most beautiful of God’s creatures,” thought the pre-Raphaelites. Here’s a 1904 sketch by Edward Burne-Jones of a wombat at the pyramids.

Thanks Omar for passing along this little animated comic that perfectly, uncannily captures the feeling of falling asleep in the back of your parents’ car on a road trip.

The Thirty-Six Twitter Strategems. This is so good, no notes.

Endeavors

Two friends are starting new projects aimed at helping young founders (corporate and otherwise). Both are stellar individuals who have thought very deeply about how to support young talent.

Arnaud Schenk of Entrepeneur First is starting the Polaris Fellowship:

Arnaud Schenk @_ArnaudS_

I'm really excited to announce @join_polaris. It's a programme I've wanted to build for years now, and immensely grateful to @join_ef for providing the environment within which to finally do it. 1/

Polaris Fellowship @join_polaris

Today, we're announcing Polaris, a 9 month fellowship which gives you the resources and peer group you need to master the established and explore the heretical as you work to discover your life's work. Our first cohorts start in January 2023 in Cambridge and London. 1/

And Molly Mielke is kicking off Moth Fund:

Molly Mielke @mollyfmielke

i'm raising a fund! @mothfund aims to increase the agency of extraordinary individuals using both investment dollars and grants. MF is the culmination of my past 6 months investigating the whisker-end of innovation. more details here:

mothfund.substack.comi’m raising a fund!Increasing the agency of exceptional individuals using both investment dollars and grants

Both are cool parallels to the work we do at Interact, although they’re both their own unique endeavors.