Briefly Noted Book Reviews

By the Fire We Carry, by Rebecca Nagle (Harper). This richly reported book centers on McGirt v. Oklahoma, a Supreme Court case that, when it was decided, in 2020, reaffirmed Native American sovereignty over large parts of the state. Nagle, a Cherokee journalist, illuminates the case’s relevance through the related legal battle surrounding a Muscogee convict’s death sentence, the validity of which is contested by a public defender who believes that, since the crime took place on tribal land, Oklahoma state law enforcement did not have jurisdiction over it. Throughout the book, Nagle places these events in the context of centuries of injustice. By focussing on figures such as her ancestor John Ridge, a prominent nineteenth-century Cherokee politician, she also shows how “Indigenous resistance formed the first large-scale political protest movement in the United States.”

Alexander von Humboldt, by Andreas W. Daum (Princeton). The discoveries of the Prussian nobleman, cave botanist, and humanitarian Alexander von Humboldt, who was born in 1769, are the central attraction of this concise biography. Based on his research conducted in South America, Humboldt located the magnetic equator and defined the concept of climate zones for plants. He ventured high into the Ural Mountains and the Andes, and made a daring ascent on the volcano Chimborazo, in Ecuador. He also consorted with Napoleon, Thomas Jefferson, and Charles Darwin. Daum interweaves these exploits with noteworthy episodes that took place during the nine decades of Humboldt’s life, among them the decline of feudal Europe, the birth of photography, and the combustion of revolutionary fervor across the world.