Empire's tracks : indigenous nations, Chinese workers, and the transcontinental railroad / Manu Karuka

NMAIMAI copy purchased with funds from the Lloyd and Charlotte Wineland Library Endowment for Native American and Western Exploration Literature.

The prose of countersovereignty -- Modes of relationship -- Railroad colonialism -- Lakota -- Chinese -- Pawnee -- Cheyenne -- Shareholder whiteness -- Continental imperialism -- Epilogue : The significance of decolonization in North America

"Empire's Tracks boldly reframes the history of the transcontinental railroad from the perspectives of Cheyennes, Lakotas, and Pawnees, and from the vantage of Chinese migrants who toiled on its path. In this meticulously researched monograph, Manu Karuka situates the railroad within the violent global histories of colonialism and capitalism. Through an examination of legislative, military, and business records, Karuka deftly explicates the imperial foundations of U.S. political economy. Tracing the shared paths of indigenous and Asian American histories, this multisited interdisciplinary study connects military occupation to exclusionary border policies, a linked chain spanning the heart of U.S. imperialism. This highly original and beautifully wrought book unveils how the transcontinental railroad laid the tracks of the U.S. Empire"--Provided by publisher.