We love mass incarceration here in America. This is one of my favorite things to study because it really is about controlling the masses. When gender, religion, and propaganda aren't working there is always mass incarceration.
They build bigger prisons instead of finding ways to help people.
So yeah I was excited to read this one.
I did not know about the black fort before reading this book, just another way history classes have completely failed me.

I think I need this in a physical copy. I need a few rereads to absorb all of it.

If you are looking for a fresh, revitalizing new voice, this is a book for you. I don't always love reading nonfiction, and when I do it's always to advance my own learning of the world, people and cultures around me. This feels like a book that should be required reading, it would also serve well as a book club pick for nonfiction groups. It's an uncomfortable topic that requires you to think critically. Highly recommend for those learning to dive further into the subject of mass incarceration in this country.

This book unveils the concept of "prison imperialism" in American history: the strategy of using incarceration to control populations during westward expansion, the 19th-century Native American wars, and the acquisition of overseas territories. Tracing this concept's influence on modern mass incarceration, the narrative prompts us to reconsider the scope of America's enduring freedom struggle by highlighting prison resistance figures like Osceola and Assata Shakur.

The argument behind this book is fascinating and well-supported by the text. It's a challenging read for lay people but a brilliant addition to the scholarship in this area.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

This is a unique book taking on the position of how American prison systems have been used to exploit Native Americans, stifle political expression, and to gain more land.
I thought it was an interesting take of how prisons are used in that way.

However, I needed more context. The author throws out names and events and believes that people should have heard about these people/events.

I thought that to have a more full understanding was for the author to say why people were in jail/prison, the history behind the prison sentence and then correlate that to his premise.

The last few chapters were hard to digest because of the names and events that I had never heard of. It was a sea of names.

Overall I think that there is a unique perspective in the book, it gets overlooked by not having any context surrounding it.