On Savage Shores

This is a little off-piste in that this isn’t exactly about cold climates; the main topic of Dodds Pennock’s book is about how Indigenous Americans discovered Europe. I first heard Dodds Pennock talk about her book at a lecture in London just a few months back and had to buy the book, which is a riveting account of the reverse migration of Indigenous Americans to Europe.  

Why include this book on the Arctic, you ask? Dodds Pennock also writes about a few Indigenous Inuit that make it to England, and I haven’t stopped thinking about the story she tells about… show more.

As you might guess from its sub-title, this is a book that elicits strong responses: people seem to either find it wonderfully eye-opening and important, or irritatingly driven by an agenda that is more political-cultural than intellectual. 

The fact that it provokes both such reactions is, for me, crucial to why I found the book to be such a compelling and enjoyable read. This is a history that is full of surprises, one that has yet to be adequately incorporated into our understanding of what happened in the Atlantic world in the centuries after Europeans discovered Indigenous America (and the… show more.