-
The Inconvenient Indian
- A Curious Account of Native People in North America
- Narrated by: Lorne Cardinal
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Seven Fallen Feathers
- By: Tanya Talaga
- Narrated by: Michaela Washburn
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1966, 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack froze to death on the railway tracks after running away from residential school. An inquest was called, and four recommendations were made to prevent another tragedy. None of those recommendations were applied. More than a quarter of a century later, from 2000 to 2011, seven Indigenous high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The seven were hundreds of miles away from their families, forced to leave home and live in a foreign and unwelcoming city.
-
-
Important book…
- By Jo C. on 11-08-21
By: Tanya Talaga
-
21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act
- Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality
- By: Bob Joseph
- Narrated by: Sage Isaac
- Length: 3 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on a viral article, 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act is the essential guide to understanding the Canadian legal document and its repercussion on generations of Indigenous peoples, written by a leading cultural sensitivity trainer. The Indian Act, after 141 years, continues to shape, control, and constrain the lives and opportunities of Indigenous peoples, and is at the root of many lasting stereotypes.
By: Bob Joseph
-
Custer Died for Your Sins
- An Indian Manifesto
- By: Vine Deloria Jr.
- Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Standing Rock Sioux activist, professor, and attorney Vine Deloria, Jr., shares his thoughts about US race relations, federal bureaucracies, Christian churches, and social scientists in a collection of 11 eye-opening essays infused with humor. This "manifesto" provides valuable insights on American Indian history, Native American culture, and context for minority protest movements mobilizing across the country throughout the 60s and 70s. Originally published in 1969, this book remains a timeless classic and is one of the most significant nonfiction works written by a Native American.
-
-
The best place to start to understand the US
- By rain circle on 05-31-20
By: Vine Deloria Jr.
-
Medicine River
- By: Thomas King
- Narrated by: Wesley French
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Will returns to Medicine River, he thinks he is simply attending his mother’s funeral. He doesn’t count on Harlen Bigbear and his unique brand of community planning. Harlen tries to sell Will on the idea of returning to Medicine River to open shop as the town’s only Native photographer. Somehow, that’s exactly what happens. Through Will’s gentle and humorous narrative, we come to know Medicine River, a small Albertan town bordering a Blackfoot reserve. And we meet its people: the basketball team; Louise Heavyman and her daughter, South Wing, and many more.
-
-
Worth avoiding
- By Graham Findlay on 12-02-21
By: Thomas King
-
The World We Used to Live In
- Remembering the Powers of the Medicine Men
- By: Vine Deloria Jr.
- Narrated by: Wes Studi
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world lost a courageous leader and a treasured friend with the passing of Vine Deloria Jr. He was, and is, one of the greatest spiritual thinkers of our time. Before his death, Deloria was reexamining native spirituality. His years of collecting native stories of the medicine men and exploring spirituality from different perspectives are brought together in this audiobook.
-
-
My favorite book.
- By Redline on 04-05-21
By: Vine Deloria Jr.
-
Braiding Sweetgrass
- Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
- By: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Narrated by: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers.
-
-
Finally, Words
- By Donovan P Malley on 06-30-19
-
Seven Fallen Feathers
- By: Tanya Talaga
- Narrated by: Michaela Washburn
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1966, 12-year-old Chanie Wenjack froze to death on the railway tracks after running away from residential school. An inquest was called, and four recommendations were made to prevent another tragedy. None of those recommendations were applied. More than a quarter of a century later, from 2000 to 2011, seven Indigenous high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The seven were hundreds of miles away from their families, forced to leave home and live in a foreign and unwelcoming city.
-
-
Important book…
- By Jo C. on 11-08-21
By: Tanya Talaga
-
21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act
- Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality
- By: Bob Joseph
- Narrated by: Sage Isaac
- Length: 3 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on a viral article, 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act is the essential guide to understanding the Canadian legal document and its repercussion on generations of Indigenous peoples, written by a leading cultural sensitivity trainer. The Indian Act, after 141 years, continues to shape, control, and constrain the lives and opportunities of Indigenous peoples, and is at the root of many lasting stereotypes.
By: Bob Joseph
-
Custer Died for Your Sins
- An Indian Manifesto
- By: Vine Deloria Jr.
- Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Standing Rock Sioux activist, professor, and attorney Vine Deloria, Jr., shares his thoughts about US race relations, federal bureaucracies, Christian churches, and social scientists in a collection of 11 eye-opening essays infused with humor. This "manifesto" provides valuable insights on American Indian history, Native American culture, and context for minority protest movements mobilizing across the country throughout the 60s and 70s. Originally published in 1969, this book remains a timeless classic and is one of the most significant nonfiction works written by a Native American.
-
-
The best place to start to understand the US
- By rain circle on 05-31-20
By: Vine Deloria Jr.
-
Medicine River
- By: Thomas King
- Narrated by: Wesley French
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Will returns to Medicine River, he thinks he is simply attending his mother’s funeral. He doesn’t count on Harlen Bigbear and his unique brand of community planning. Harlen tries to sell Will on the idea of returning to Medicine River to open shop as the town’s only Native photographer. Somehow, that’s exactly what happens. Through Will’s gentle and humorous narrative, we come to know Medicine River, a small Albertan town bordering a Blackfoot reserve. And we meet its people: the basketball team; Louise Heavyman and her daughter, South Wing, and many more.
-
-
Worth avoiding
- By Graham Findlay on 12-02-21
By: Thomas King
-
The World We Used to Live In
- Remembering the Powers of the Medicine Men
- By: Vine Deloria Jr.
- Narrated by: Wes Studi
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world lost a courageous leader and a treasured friend with the passing of Vine Deloria Jr. He was, and is, one of the greatest spiritual thinkers of our time. Before his death, Deloria was reexamining native spirituality. His years of collecting native stories of the medicine men and exploring spirituality from different perspectives are brought together in this audiobook.
-
-
My favorite book.
- By Redline on 04-05-21
By: Vine Deloria Jr.
-
Braiding Sweetgrass
- Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
- By: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Narrated by: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers.
-
-
Finally, Words
- By Donovan P Malley on 06-30-19
-
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
- Revisioning American History
- By: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military.
-
-
Need to Clarify What the Book Is
- By Amazon Customer on 06-19-20
-
Indian Horse
- A Novel
- By: Richard Wagamese
- Narrated by: Jason Ryll
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Saul Indian Horse is in critical condition. Sitting feeble in an alcoholism treatment facility, he is told that sharing his story will help relieve his agony. Though skeptical, he embarks on a heartbreaking journey from the present - and into the woods of Northern Ontario, where his life began in a snowy Ojibway camp. The tale that follows is one of great pain and great determination from Richard Wagamese, an author who "never seems to waste a shot" ( New York Times).
-
-
Important Read
- By ruthemily on 10-07-19
By: Richard Wagamese
-
Native American DNA
- Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science
- By: Kim TallBear
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Native American DNA, Kim TallBear shows how DNA testing is a powerful - and problematic - scientific process that is useful in determining close biological relatives. But tribal membership is a legal category that has developed in dependence on certain social understandings and historical contexts, a set of concepts that entangles genetic information in a web of family relations, reservation histories, tribal rules, and government regulations.
By: Kim TallBear
-
Caste (Oprah's Book Club)
- The Origins of Our Discontents
- By: Isabel Wilkerson
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.
-
-
Brilliant, articulate, highly listenable.
- By GM on 08-05-20
By: Isabel Wilkerson
-
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee
- Native America from 1890 to the Present
- By: David Treuer
- Narrated by: Tanis Parenteau
- Length: 17 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The received idea of Native American history - as promulgated by books like Dee Brown's mega-bestselling 1970 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee - has been that American Indian history essentially ended with the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. Not only did 150 Sioux die at the hands of the US Cavalry, the sense was, but Native civilization did as well. Growing up Ojibwe on a reservation in Minnesota, training as an anthropologist, and researching Native life past and present for his nonfiction and novels, David Treuer has uncovered a different narrative.
-
-
excellent text, awful narrator
- By D. Rubinstein on 12-01-19
By: David Treuer
-
House Made of Dawn
- A Novel
- By: N. Scott Momaday
- Narrated by: N. Scott Momaday, Darrell Dennis
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young Native American, Abel has come home from war to find himself caught between two worlds. The first is the world of his father’s, wedding him to the rhythm of the seasons, the harsh beauty of the land, and the ancient rites and traditions of his people. But the other world - modern, industrial America - pulls at Abel, demanding his loyalty, trying to claim his soul, and goading him into a destructive, compulsive cycle of depravity and disgust.
-
-
Novel great, reader not so much.
- By Marcia on 05-17-20
By: N. Scott Momaday
-
Split Tooth
- By: Tanya Tagaq
- Narrated by: Tanya Tagaq
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A girl grows up in Nunavut in the 1970s. She knows joy and friendship and parents' love. She knows boredom and listlessness and bullying. She knows the tedium of the everyday world and the raw, amoral power of the ice and sky, the seductive energy of the animal world. She knows the ravages of alcohol and violence at the hands of those she should be able to trust. She sees the spirits that surround her and the immense power that dwarfs all of us. When she becomes pregnant, she must navigate all this.
-
-
Confronting, Captivating
- By Rochelle on 09-26-18
By: Tanya Tagaq
-
The Sum of Us
- What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together
- By: Heather McGhee
- Narrated by: Heather McGhee
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Heather McGhee’s specialty is the American economy - and the mystery of why it so often fails the American public. From the financial crisis of 2008 to rising student debt to collapsing public infrastructure, she found a root problem: racism in our politics and policymaking. But not just in the most obvious indignities for people of color. Racism has costs for White people, too. It is the common denominator of our most vexing public problems, the core dysfunction of our democracy and constitutive of the spiritual and moral crises that grip us all.
-
-
Good book but Recording tech is poor. Glitches
- By Jeannepup on 02-25-21
By: Heather McGhee
-
The 1619 Project
- A New Origin Story
- By: Nikole Hannah-Jones, The New York Times Magazine, Caitlin Roper - editor, and others
- Narrated by: Nikole Hannah-Jones, Full Cast
- Length: 18 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning “1619 Project” issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together 18 essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with 36 poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance.
-
-
History demands the official story be corrected
- By David C. on 12-05-21
By: Nikole Hannah-Jones, and others
-
Wisdom Sits in Places
- Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache
- By: Keith H. Basso
- Narrated by: Steven Jay Cohen
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most of us use the term sense of place often and rather carelessly when we think of nature or home or literature. Our senses of place, however, come not only from our individual experiences but also from our cultures. Wisdom Sits in Places, the first sustained study of places and place explores place, places, and what they mean to a particular group of people, the Western Apache in Arizona. For more than 30 years, Keith Basso has been doing fieldwork among the Western Apache, and now he shares with us what he has learned of Apache place-names.
By: Keith H. Basso
-
Tribe
- On Homecoming and Belonging
- By: Sebastian Junger
- Narrated by: Sebastian Junger
- Length: 2 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Decades before the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin lamented that English settlers were constantly fleeing over to the Indians - but Indians almost never did the same. Tribal society has been exerting an almost gravitational pull on Westerners for hundreds of years, and the reason lies deep in our evolutionary past as a communal species. The most recent example of that attraction is combat veterans who come home to find themselves missing the incredibly intimate bonds of platoon life.
-
-
The most profound book on the subject
- By joseph on 05-26-16
By: Sebastian Junger
-
Civilized to Death
- The Price of Progress
- By: Christopher Ryan
- Narrated by: Christopher Ryan
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most of us have instinctive evidence the world is ending - balmy December days, face-to-face conversation replaced with heads-to-screens zomboidism, a world at constant war, a political system in disarray. We hear some myths and lies so frequently that they feel like truths: Civilization is humankind’s greatest accomplishment. Progress is undeniable. Count your blessings. You’re lucky to be alive here and now. Civilized to Death counters the idea that progress is inherently good, arguing that the "progress" defining our age is analogous to an advancing disease.
-
-
Brilliant
- By Amazon Customer on 10-21-19
By: Christopher Ryan
Publisher's Summary
The Inconvenient Indian is at once a “history” and the complete subversion of a history - in short, a critical and personal meditation that the remarkable Thomas King has conducted over the past 50 years about what it means to be “Indian” in North America. Rich with dark and light, pain and magic, this book distills the insights gleaned from that meditation, weaving the curiously circular tale of the relationship between non-Natives and Natives in the centuries since the two first encountered each other. In the process, King refashions old stories about historical events and figures, takes a sideways look at film and pop culture, relates his own complex experiences with activism, and articulates a deep and revolutionary understanding of the cumulative effects of ever-shifting laws and treaties on Native peoples and lands.
This is a book both timeless and timely, burnished with anger but tempered by wit, and ultimately a hard-won offering of hope - a sometimes inconvenient but nonetheless indispensable account for all of us, Indian and non-Indian alike, seeking to understand how we might tell a new story for the future.
Critic Reviews
"[The Inconvenient Indian is] essential reading for everyone who cares about Canada and who seeks to understand native people, their issues and their dreams.... Thomas King is beyond being a great writer and storyteller, a lauded academic and educator. He is a towering intellectual. For native people in Canada, he is our Twain; wise, hilarious, incorrigible, with a keen eye for the inconsistencies that make us and our society flawed, enigmatic, but ultimately powerful symbols of freedom. The Inconvenient Indian is less an indictment than a reassurance that we can create equality and harmony. A powerful, important book." (Richard Wagamese, The Globe and Mail)
"King is a Canadian icon.... The Inconvenient Indian is labelled a history book but it is about Canada today. I suggest teachers include a copy in every school classroom. It made me a better Canadian and more compassionate person." (Craig Kielburger, cofounder of Free the Children)
"Every Canadian should read Thomas King’s new book, The Inconvenient Indian.... It's funny, it’s readable, and it makes you think. If you have any kind of a social conscience, The Inconvenient Indian will also make you angry." (Toronto Star)
More from the same
What listeners say about The Inconvenient Indian
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Adam Silver
- 01-15-19
amazing
a really important work, told with grace and humor. the narrator does a wonderful job, bringing great life to this book.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- L Dickson
- 10-17-18
Thought this was great
Narrator very good and the shocking story of treatment of these first Americans sad and somehow hopeful as they keep sending n keeping on
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jeffrey A. Hayes
- 01-13-19
Embarrassing
Brilliant review of the history and current state of North American governments’ treatment of Indian peoples. This is much more embarrassing for the citizens of the U.S. and Canada than I thought possible.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- olkazuraw
- 10-13-19
good overview of indian-white relations w/ exmples
The complicated history of indian-white relations told with slightly ironic and sarcastic humor (as much as the subject allows for, there are plenty of tragic events mentioned). Difficult subject, but it's necessary to be aware of this history.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Laurel Robinson
- 09-12-18
truth, provided with humor
loved it, recommend this to anyone who is Indian, lives near Indians or works with Indians. this is a very honest description of our history, not what is taught in school.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 12-14-18
Yt ppl ruin everything
I loved everything about this book, the histories are on point, the attitude, the criticizing of all you Europeans on our land. What a beautiful piece of knowledge that will be shared as often as I can share it and read to my future children.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Beverly Bennett
- 09-11-18
Highly informative
Very well done. Covers Native Americans in both the U.S. and Canada. As the author is personally involved, it's also a personal and therefore more meaningful telling. It was hard to believe that the reader was not the author. Highly effective and informative.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kristy Grainger
- 08-11-18
I Thought I'd Enjoy This More
I've loved Thomas King as an author since I was in university - and I love the narrator as an actor - but this is a terrible pairing. Everything he says is done with an intonation that implies that Native American's played no active role in their own history and that white colonists, universally, worked to exterminate them - then lied about it. I'd love to get a text copy of this book and read it without the intervening layer of the narrator putting his own spin on the words. As is, I feel as though the author is propagating the ridiculous myth that Native Americans lived in some kind of lost eden before the arrival of Europeans - which infantilized indigenous people and makes everyone come off as some kind of two-dimensional character in a cheap novel. Native people's played an active role in their own history, and both sides were trying to preserve their way of life while escaping persecution from outside forces.
This is the history of the human species, and it is naive to believe that Native peoples were immune to the pressures of war, famine, slavery and social divides before the arrival of Columbus. In an ever changing world, technology had advanced, and would continue to advance, enough to allow, what had been, two geographically isolated groups of people (Native American and Europeans) to interact more often and more freely. This is the nature of globalization - it is not a force that could have been stopped (or can be). That is not to say that wrongs were not committed, or that I would suggest behaving like early colonists; since I hope that we have all grown more tolerant of each other as a species. However, I do believe that we all have to stop believing our own historically constructed and self-aggrandizing myths and look at our history(s) with clarity, and an understanding of the human condition.
If you believe that the human species came out of Africa than you also have to accept that migration has been a part of human history since the beginning. People will always move from places of danger or scarcity to places of (hoped for) safety and plenty. The modern refuge crises is a prime example. Some of these immigrants will go home, as did some Europeans from North America, but once you've put forth the effort to build a new life in a new place - for whatever reason - you rarely want to rip your life apart again to reverse the process. I would argue that we've all come from somewhere else. Go ahead and get your DNA tested and see what it says.
Examine the past without apology or prejudice and then look to the future - and leave the world better then you found it. None of us can change where we were born, or to whom. Tribalism, and the modern-day equivalent of nationalism, needs to be tossed into the rubbish heap of history so that we can realize that we're all in it together. Lets stop pissing in the corners of our respective territories, because it makes the whole world stink.
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jerry
- 07-11-21
Wow
Tom King does the seemingly impossible. He tells the history of the relationship between indigenous North Americans, and the governments of Canada and the U.S., with all the outrageous lies and governmental and abuses. And somehow, King makes an important work funny and enjoyable to read.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 05-23-21
A Bittersweet Read
I loved what felt an honest reflection of North American Indian history. I finished heavy hearted because the narrative is traumatic but not without hope. The power of this book lies in the many accounts of perseverance amongst Indians/Natives. Highly recommend!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- D. D. Pianta
- 11-05-19
great!
it should be part of the school curriculum! great account of events. really interesting, highly recommended
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- johnnie
- 11-19-21
Such inconveniences on all fronts. My apologies.
"The inconvenient Indian..."
The persistent gentle irony is excellent and given the density of "facts" Mr King outputs, it is well written and yet skips you through them. The Indian future looks bleak but for their burgeoning gambling industry...that may be a salvation but then so sad.
Now I see the behaviours of the American white folk had to be the inspiration for the "Borg" in Star trek.
Me UK citizen. Me Anglo french caucasian. Me very sorry.