As the discussion leader for The Comanche Empire, I want to post some of the questions for this week’s discussion. Please read these questions and come to class prepared to answer and debate the following:
– The Comanche Empire is a controversial book. Does the author’s non-American citizenship and Non-Native American affiliation help or hinder his perspective/research/argument? Does it delegitimize him or give him a level of unique legitimacy?
– What would David Gutierrez think about Hamalainen’s nationality if he had decided to write about Mexican-American history? Which generation of Mexican historians is Hamalainen most like?
– What constitutes an empire and do you consider 18th and 19th Century Comancheria an empire despite its lack of centralized government, disinterest in directly ruling outside entities and inability to spread outside a very specific ecological area?
– Is the power of Comancheria different than the power of other Native American Groups (ie: Iroquois Confederation prior to Revolutionary War)?
– Compare the Comanche motivations to raid Texas and Mexico with the mercantilist policies of England contracting privateers to raid Spanish ships in the Atlantic? Was the perceived economic legitimacy of raiding to gain horses and slaves unique to the Comanche Empire or is this a long standing western technique?
– How are the concepts of empires and middle grounds related? Are they appropriately used in this book?
– What is the difference between a middle ground and acculturation? Which is appropriate to use regarding the Comanche?
– How is violence related to a middle ground? Are the two mutually exclusive? Is middle ground an appropriate term to use regarding the Comanche?
– Are the concepts of borderlands and middle grounds overused? Does the concept of borderlands and middle grounds lose meaning when it is applied to most influences and contacts between cultures? Are there times when acculturation is a more appropriate term?
– Richard White outlines the elements necessary for the construction of a middle ground as having a “rough balance of power, mutual need or a desire for what the other possesses, and an inability by either side to commandeer enough force to compel the other to change.” Is the middle ground an appropriate term to describe the space between Comancheria and the colonies of New Mexico and Texas prior to the Mexican-American War when considering the immense power differential Hamalainen outlines between Comancheria and the two languishing Spanish colonies?
– How does The Comanche Empire refute more traditional national and hemispheric histories? Is this perspective overshadowing or misrepresenting any meaningful events, people, influences or motivations? (ie: demographics, industrial economy)
– How are race, class and gender used/not used in Hamalainen’s arguments?
– Does Hamalainen support or refute the assertions made in War of a Thousand Deserts?
– Does Hamalainen support or refute the assertions made in The Way of the West? Can you find the environmental argument in The Comanche Empire? (p. 329)
– In his September 2011 article in The Journal of American History, Pekka Hamalainen describes the future of borderlands history as lying in the areas of “spatial mobility, situational identity, local contingency and the ambiguities of power.” Give an example of each of these five areas in his book, Comanche Empire.
I commented on David’s Blog:
AmWest Post #10: Comanche… World-System, Federation, Empire?
History 616: American West 