Category: 3-BookTalkSometimeCommentary

The game of basketball is perceived by most today as an “urban” game with a locale such as Rucker Park in Harlem as the game’s epicenter (as well as a pipeline to the NBA). While that is certainly a true statement, basketball is not limited to places such as New York City.

In recent years scholars have written about the meaning of the game (and triumphs on the hardwood) to other groups, such as Asian Americans (Kathleen Yep and Joel Franks) and Mexican Americans (Ignacio Garcia). To this important literature one can now add an examination of the sport in the lives of Native Americans, through Wade Davies' Native Hoops: The Rise of American Indian Basketball, 1895-1970 (University Press of Kansas, 2020).

The game, as Davies notes, was not just something imposed upon Natives in locales such as the Indian Industrial Training School in Kansas (and elsewhere). The game provided linkages to the Native past, and was embraced as a way to “prove their worth” within a hostile environment designed to strip students of all vestiges of their cultural inheritance. The sport provided both young men and women with an opportunity to compete against members of other institutions (both Native and white) and to challenge notions of inferiority and inherent weaknesses.

Davies’ work does an excellent job of detailing the role of the sport in the lives of individuals, schools, and eventually, Native communities. Additionally, it examines how these players competed against sometimes seven opponents (the five players on the court and the two officials) to claim their rightful place on the court. They also often had to deal with the taunts and racism of crowds at opposing gyms. Still, most of these schools managed to field competitive teams that created their own “Indian” style of basketball that proved quite difficult to defeat.

Wade Davies is professor of Native American studies at the University of Montana, Missoula.

Jorge Iber is a professor of history at Texas Tech University.

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On today’s episode, host Candice Lim tells Kate Lindsay about two recent BookTok conventions that went off the rails. While the first convention become known as the “Fyre Fest” of BookTok, the other faced troubling allegations of sexual assault against an employee. Is BookTok or social media to blame for how often attempts to bring a fandom together end up shattering the community apart? 

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This podcast is produced by Daisy Rosario, Vic Whitley-Berry, Candice Lim, and Kate Lindsay.

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Native American History of Washington, DC (History Press, 2023) by Dr. Armand Lione is a comprehensive recounting at the overlooked history of the Indigenous people who lived in the area for many years before the arrival of colonists. The book, dedicated to increasing public awareness of this history, aims to fill the historical gap that has long been ignored in the nation's capital. Lione, a toxicologist and historian, began his research after being inspired by the public acknowledgment of Indigenous people in Melbourne, Australia.

The book's central argument is that the history of Native Americans in Washington, DC, has been essentially "overlooked" or "erased from public view". Lione's research debunks the common "myth of a swamp," which suggests the land was empty before the capital was founded. Instead, he presents extensive evidence of a rich Native presence, focusing on the Anacostan people of the Piscataway tribe.

The author meticulously documents numerous archaeological sites and artifacts found throughout the city. These findings prove that the land was inhabited for centuries. Highlights include:

• The Native Village Near the Capitol: The book details the findings of archaeologist Samuel Vincent Proudfit, who in the 1880s identified a Native village site just five blocks from the U.S. Capitol, on land that became Garfield Park and the Daniel Carroll estate.
• The White House Grounds: In the 1970s, construction for a new swimming pool on the White House grounds uncovered seventeen Native American artifacts, including quartzite points and pottery fragments.
• A High-Status Burial in Foggy Bottom: Archaeological digs for a new highway ramp in 1997 revealed three significant Native sites, including a burial pit with the cremated remains and grave goods of a high-status woman from about 1,200 years ago. This is described as "The most significant prehistoric discovery in the city of Washington".
• Anacostia-Bolling Military Base: Lione pinpoints the Anacostan chief's village and a Native burial ground to the area that is now the Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. In 1936, two ossuaries (common burial sites) containing the remains of about 130 individuals were found during airfield expansion.
• Native Quarries in Northwest DC: The book details two major Native quarries in northwest DC: the Piney Branch Quartzite Quarry and the Rose Hill Soapstone Quarry, where Native Americans worked stone for tools and pots for thousands of years.

Lione also explores the historical record of the Anacostans, explaining how their name was derived from a linguistic mistake by English settlers and how the tribe was a hub of traders. The book introduces Henry Fleete, a young English settler who lived with the Anacostans for five years in the 1620s and returned with fluency in their language, later becoming a successful trader.

In the epilogue, Lione asks why this rich history has been overlooked. He suggests that a mix of indifference, an underlying shame about colonial history, and a lack of public markers are to blame. The author advocates for actionable steps, such as using Native land acknowledgments, teaching this history in schools, and supporting local Piscataway tribes through donations and land trusts. He created the DC Native History Project to bring this history to public attention and has seen small victories, such as a land acknowledgment at the DC Public Library and the Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling updating its history to include the Anacostan presence. Lione concludes with a call to action for readers to help ensure this history is no longer forgotten.

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You’ve got to speculate to accumulate. We apply that notion to individuals in pursuit of wealth, but what about countries? The Debt of a Nation: Land and the Financing of the Canadian Settler State, 1820–73 (U of British Columbia Press, 2025) is the first comprehensive history of Canada’s nineteenth-century public debt. Beginning in the 1820s, loans gave British North American settler governments access to unprecedented amounts of capital at low interest rates. The credit for such loans derived from colonial appropriation of Indigenous territories, and this process essentially created a market value for stolen land.

Dr. Angela Tozer explores the role of public debt financing in the consolidation of the Canadian settler state: Upper Canada’s first public debt, issued as securities on the London Stock Exchange; the unique government land tenure of Prince Edward Island and attendant impact on Mi’kmaw homelands; and the purchase of Rupert’s Land via a loan. She analyzes how an economic system centred on credit and debt relied on two factors: settlers had to become the risk bearers – though not necessarily the beneficiaries – of loans, and colonial governments had to have the power to appropriate Indigenous territories in order to appear creditworthy.

This history of the intimate relationship between public debt and colonization underscores the importance of the appropriation of Indigenous lands to global markets.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Political Gabfest host Emily Bazelon talks with Jonathan Mahler about his new book, The Gods of New York. They discuss the unraveling of Mayor Ed Koch’s New York City; how the city’s current mayoral race is mirroring the past; and more.

 

Tweet us your questions @SlateGabfest or email us at gabfest@slate.com. (Messages could be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

 

Podcast production by Cheyna Roth.

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This episode features Dr. Kit W. Myers, associate professor of History and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Merced, discussing his book The Violence of Love: Race, Family and Adoption in the United States, which was published by the University of California Press in January 2025.

The Violence of Love challenges the narrative that adoption is a solely loving act that benefits birth parents, adopted individuals, and adoptive parents—a narrative that is especially pervasive with transracial and transnational adoptions. Using interdisciplinary methods of archival, legal, and discursive analysis, Myers comparatively examines the adoption of Asian, Black, and Native American children by White families in the United States. He shows how race has been constructed relationally to mark certain homes, families, and nations as spaces of love, freedom, and better futures—in contrast to others that are not—and argues that violence is attached to adoption in complex ways. Propelled by different types of love, such adoptions attempt to transgress biological, racial, cultural, and national borders established by traditional family ideals. Yet they are also linked to structural, symbolic, and traumatic forms of violence. The Violence of Love confronts this discomforting reality and rethinks theories of family to offer more capacious understandings of love, kinship, and care.

Donna Doan Anderson (she/her) is a research assistant professor in the department of History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

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Kate Lindsay and Candice Lim discuss the latest in Labubu-land, from a TikTok blackface controversy to leaving one on an iconic anti-capitalist’s grave. Then, they dive into the growing trend of fanfiction getting a big marketing push from the publishing world. From Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis starting as Reylo fanfic to Julie Soto basing her latest novel on a Dramione ship, traditional publishing is reaching into the channels of AO3, Tumblr, and Wattpad to find their next big hit. But what do we lose when our favorite fanfictions get taken mainstream? And is it good or bad for the community they originated from?

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This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim, and Kate Lindsay.

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Evan Osnos has spent nearly his whole life observing the habits, values, and norms of the wealthy elite, from his childhood in suburban Connecticut to the years he spent reporting on the mega-yachts and underground bunkers of the U.S.’s richest citizens. 

This week, he talks to Anna about his new book The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich, and they get specific about what the most powerful people in the world value and what keeps them up at night.

Evan is a staff writer at The New Yorker and is a co-host of The New Yorker’s podcast The Political Scene.  

This episode was produced by Cameron Drews.

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If you’re new to the show, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Find us and follow us on Instagram and you can find Anna’s newsletter at annasale.substack.com. Our email address, where you can reach us with voice memos, pep talks, questions, critiques, is deathsexmoney@slate.com.

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Harriett Gilbert talks with Juhea Kim about her debut novel Beasts of a Little Land.

Set during the turbulent years of Japanese-occupied Korea in the early 20th century, this sweeping historical epic traces the lives of two unforgettable characters: Jade, a young girl sold to a courtesan school, and JungHo, the orphaned son of a hunter who becomes swept up in the Communist resistance. Over five decades, their paths cross and recross as they navigate war, occupation, and revolution. Rich with lyrical prose, folklore, and unflinching insight into the brutality of empire, Beasts of a Little Land explores identity, loyalty, and the high price of survival.

Juhea Kim will be talking about why the Tiger is such an important symbol in Korean history, how her writing is structured like a symphony, and how as a writer she strives to show the humanity of all her characters when they are on very different sides of war and colonialism.

Where the Red-Winged Blackbirds Sing: The Akimel O'odham and Cycles of Agricultural Transformation in the Phoenix Basin (UP of Colorado, 2021) is not a simple story of environmental decline and colonial imposion. In this brilliantly interdisciplinary book, Goucher College peace studies professor Jennifer Bess instead weaves a complicated narrative of change, stability, autonomy, and adaptation, focusing on Indigenous ways of understanding the land and its beings, and how the people who were created in the desert southwest have always shown resilience by adapting to changes. Even in the face fo changes including Spanish colonization, American industrialized agriculture, and today, climate change, the Akimel O'odham have persevered through their intimate knowledge of the Gila River Basin, and their understanding of how to ensure that the desert remains in bloom.

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