Thread by @AvidBookshop

Big news: yesterday it was revealed that Athens' own Claudio Saunt is a National Book Award Finalist. This is a HUGE deal no matter how modest Claudio is about it.
#avidevents @ClaudioSaunt (1/x)

2/ You can e-meet him on 10/22. He'll be in conversation with @WillsonCenter director Nicholas Allen, aka @dedalusdenaries

3/ UNWORTHY REPUBLIC is a masterful and unsettling history of “Indian Removal,” the forced migration of Native Americans across the Mississippi River in the 1830s, and the state-sponsored theft of their lands. #nativelivesmatter

4/ In May 1830, the United States formally launched a policy to expel Native Americans from the East to territories west of the Mississippi River. #nativelivesmatter #unworthyrepublic @ClaudioSaunt

5/ Justified as a humanitarian enterprise, the undertaking was to be systematic and rational, overseen by Washington’s small but growing bureaucracy. But as the policy unfolded over the next decade, thousands of Native Americans died under the federal government’s auspices...

6/ and thousands of others lost their possessions and homelands in an orgy of fraud, intimidation, and violence. #UnworthyRepublic reveals how expulsion became a national policy and describes the chaotic and deadly results of the operation to deport 80,000 men, women, & children.

6/ ...and thousands of others lost their possessions and homelands in an orgy of fraud, intimidation, and violence. @ClaudioSaunt #unworthyrepublic #nativelivesmatter

7/ #UnworthyRepublic reveals how expulsion became a national policy and describes the chaotic and deadly results of the operation to deport 80,000 men, women, and children.

8/ Drawing on firsthand accounts and the voluminous records produced by the federal government, Saunt’s deeply researched book argues that Indian Removal, as advocates of the policy called it, was not an inevitable chapter in U.S. expansion across the continent. #unworthyrepublic

9/ Rather, it was a fiercely contested political act designed to secure new lands for the expansion of slavery and to consolidate the power of the southern states. Indigenous peoples fought against the policy... #unworthyrepublic #nativelivesmatter

10/ ...while many U.S. citizens insisted that it was a betrayal of the nation’s values... #nativelivesmatter #unworthyrepublic

In telling this gripping story, @ClaudioSaunt shows how the politics and economics of white supremacy lay at the heart of the expulsion of Native Americans... #nativelivesmater #unworthyrepublic

12/ ...how corruption, greed, and administrative indifference and incompetence contributed to the debacle of its implementation, and how the consequences still resonate today. #nativelivesmatter avidbookshop.com/event/claudio-…

13/13 Join us 10/22/20 for @nationalbook finalist @ClaudioSaunt in conversation with @WillsonCenter's Nicholas Allen (@dedalusdenaries). Please join us. avidbookshop.com/event/claudio-…

(Also this was my first deliberate Tweet thread and I wasn't that great at it. But there ya go. -Janet)

You can learn more about the book and buy a copy (whether or not you can attend our free event) by clicking here: avidbookshop.com/event/claudio-…