Decade Of Despair Book

Manning blithely and in passing makes the racist claim, only marginally pertinent to an argument he was making, that native americans are genetically predisposed to alcoholism and a few lines later makes the preposterous assertion that some U.S. Army generals he names who were ruthless Indian fighters were actually protectors of Indians and the reservations were actually created to protect natives, a gross and silly oversimplification. He sources some of what he says on other topics, but these statements go unsourced. He also claims, based on an observation from a white artist-Catlin (known for over romantic and generally distorted portrayals of what he saw on his trips to the great plains) that native women were slaves to the men. Wow, and that was in the space of about five pages in the first or second chapter. What idealist wouldn't like this idea of buying up the midrivers area of Montana and making it a buffalo range? It is right up there with restoring the Hetch Hetchy Valley. A glorious dream, actually realisable. But such an advocate! one star for the idea, 4 star deductions for having Richard Manning advance the idea.