Murder State: California's Native American Genocide, 1846-1873 Paperback – March 1, 2015

This book is extremely-well researched and contains revelation after revelation. Terrific presentation of history; haunting. does not let go of the reader.

California History was taught during 4th grade in California Public Schools some 57 years ago. A lot was left out. The big question was where did they go? Some of an answer was the Native peoples of California were meek, passive, didnt put up a fight. Just more lies about a downright ugly “policy” based on unfounded fears and hatred, greed and manifest destiny.I am sorry to have been ignorant for so long.

This book is tough. Many of the events described in this book are difficult to hear. I had to take a couple weeks off from listening to this audio book to avoid getting too depressed. The author was relentless in his condemnation of Californians in their genocide against the native people.I ended up skipping much of the introduction. Historians like to quibble over semantics and this author thought it was necessary to define genocide with painstaking detail in order to prove this thesis that a genocide was committed. I simply conceded the point and moved on with the book.The narrator could have used some help with pronunciations, though. Oregon was pronounced "Or-e-'gawn," for example. There were other, very common words that were mispronounced as well but I'm writing this review about a month after finishing the book. I can forgive some of the place names as I am a local and am very familiar with California. But the mispronunciations seemed excessive. There was also a lot of audio editing that had increased volume or other startling or choppy flow. I give the book 4 stars but the narration would be down around 2-3 as among the worst narrations I've heard.Overall, this was a great book, however. The amount of source material must have taken some time to gather. The author did a very good job making the story flow. I would recommend the book to anybody who enjoys California history, not because it's all that enjoyable a read (it's emotionally draining to hear about this stuff) but because it's part of our local history that needs recognition. How we choose to live as victors of a genocide is a question we all must wrestle with somehow to live honestly in this place we call home.

This is a history that is so shocking, and so carefully hidden, it is a MUST read for everyone, but especially those of us who live in California and have absolutely NO IDEA what happened to the Native people who were here first.

I have not read this book yet (I have just ordered it) but as I read the reviews I was struck by "Michael's" review, so negative compared to other reviews. So negative, in fact, that I clicked on Michael's name to see what he had to say about other books. He says exactly the same thing about at least four other books, largely cutting and pasting the same words that he used to blast this book. The other books have nothing to do with California Indians (one is about Rome while another is about Osama Bin Laden). Michael seems to have an agenda and I am not quite sure what it is unless it is to disparage every book that may not endorse his political viewpoint, and by reading his reviews you will quickly surmise that viewpoint.

I found little more information than I had learned in courses I took in college 50 years ago. But for the uninformed, the book is full of information that more people should understand before taking their families to California missions.

Goes into great detail linearly that shows the path that leads to genocide

I gave my father this book for Father's Day. He could hardly put it down. It is heavy but an interesting read.