Book · 1970
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
by Dee Brown
Dee Brown tells the conquest of the American West through the testimonies of the people who lost it, tribe by tribe, treaty by treaty.
What does Reddit think of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee?
Eight mentions across r/history and r/AskHistorians, split exactly four each. The sentiment scores flat zero on both subs — not because readers are indifferent, but because the data skews toward context quotes rather than direct endorsements or attacks. r/AskHistorians surfaces the more considered takes. A commenter there (↑61) who read it at 14 singles it out for 1970 as the book that flipped the default narrator of westward expansion from cavalry officer to Lakota elder. r/history treats it as a list anchor: it appears twice in curated reading lists covering Indigenous and U.S. history, both carrying ↑54. The 6 unique commenters across 8 mentions suggest a small but recurring audience: this is a book people recommend, not a book people debate. No dissenting takes appear in the data. Traffic peaked in 2024 with 3 mentions, suggesting ongoing relevance rather than nostalgic resurface.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · Indigenous perspectives on U.S. westward expansion
- · Treaty violations and U.S. government policy
- · Oral histories and first-person Native American testimonies
- · Colonialism and land dispossession
- · Frontier mythology versus lived Native experience
Common praise
- + Inverts the default narrator of the 19th-century West so completely that readers report it broke their prior frame for U.S. history.
- + Gets recommended alongside serious academic lists on r/history, which treats it as a standard reference for Indigenous and frontier topics.
- + A commenter on r/AskHistorians (↑61) marks it as the 1970 publication that moved the eyewitness account from settler to survivor — decades before that framing became standard.
- + Shows up on multiple curated reading lists without prompting, meaning readers reach for it as a default suggestion rather than a specialty pick.
Common criticism
- − No dissenting takes appear across the 8 mentions in the data — which either means critics self-select out of these threads or the book's moral framing is treated as too settled to argue with.
- − The flat sentiment and low unique commenter count (6 across 8 mentions) suggest it gets cited more than it gets discussed; readers recommend it without getting into specifics.
- − Historiographical debates about Brown's sourcing and selectivity don't surface in these threads, so the data can't tell you whether the academic criticisms leveled at it since 1970 are worth worrying about.
Who it's for
If you learned U.S. history from a textbook that treated Manifest Destiny as a chapter title rather than a policy choice, this is the corrective. Readers on r/AskHistorians who already follow Native American history treat it as foundational context. The r/history list-makers slot it alongside serious regional histories of Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Latin America — it belongs in that tier. Someone wanting a fast overview will find the chapter-by-chapter structure (one tribe, one decade at a time) slower than they expect. Academic historians know its limitations, but the data here doesn't show anyone in these threads making that case.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee?
Top-upvoted quotes across the subreddits where this book is mentioned. Click through to read the full thread.
“It really depends on where you are. At the upper level of historical scholarship, it’s very widespread. Any U.S. Historian knows that Native American relations were a big part of the resentment felt toward the British; especially among the frontier folk and the planter class looking to expand their …
“Depends a lot on the time and place. I’ll focus on the US and Canada for this answer. In the northeast coast of North America, at the time of first contact for many tribes firearms were not as advantageous as they initially appear to be. They are intimidating certainly and when massed have a lot o…
“I read Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee for the first time when I was 14 or so, when I was becoming a huge history nerd and looking into my mother's ancestral story of having a Choctaw descendant (a woman for which only a last name exists). For a book written in 1970, it was groundbreaking in that it …
“Bury my heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
“Hello everyone. I compiled a list of all the books I strongly recommended, and organized them by region/topic. Hope you guys find it useful! Afghanistan: *Afghanistan* by Jonatahn A. Lee. The books provides a great overview of Afghanistan's rich history from the 15th century to the modern day. Int…
“Just thought of sharing my highly recommended reading list! Afghanistan: [Afghanistan: A History From 1260 to the Present]( A History from 1260 to the Present ) by Jonatahn A. Lee. The books prov…
Convinced? Pick up Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Readers also mention
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Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee — frequently asked
Is Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee still worth reading in 2026?+
Yes, for its historical role if not as a final word. On r/AskHistorians (↑61), a reader who first picked it up at 14 describes it as the book that gave Native Americans the narrator's seat for 1970 — at a time when that was genuinely unusual. It appears on current recommended reading lists on r/history without caveats, suggesting the consensus is that it still holds its place.
What does Reddit actually say about Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee?+
Eight mentions across r/history and r/AskHistorians (4 each), 6 unique commenters, no negative takes in the data. Both subs treat it as a reference-grade recommendation. The AskHistorians quotes frame it in the context of Indigenous-settler relations; the r/history quotes slot it into curated reading lists. Nobody argues with it in these threads.
Is Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee academic history or popular history?+
Popular history, written by a librarian, though r/AskHistorians — a sub that enforces source standards — doesn't flag it as unreliable. It appears in that sub 4 times without being challenged on methodology. Academics have critiqued Brown's selectivity since publication, but those debates don't appear in the Reddit data tracked here.
Where does Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee fit in a broader U.S. history reading list?+
It shows up on r/history reading lists alongside regional histories of Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Latin America — meaning list-makers treat it as genre-equivalent to serious survey histories, not as a specialty or supplementary text. Two separate r/history lists (both ↑54) include it without qualification.