
The Cost of Free Land
Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance
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Narrated by:
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Rebecca Clarren
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By:
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Rebecca Clarren
About this listen
Winner of the Will Rogers Medallion Award for Western Nonfiction
Finalist for The Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize
Shortlisted for The William Saroyan International Prize
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
"Sharply insightful . . . A monumental piece of work."—The Boston Globe
An award-winning author investigates the entangled history of her Jewish ancestors' land in South Dakota and the Lakota, who were forced off that land by the United States government
Growing up, Rebecca Clarren only knew the major plot points of her tenacious immigrant family’s origins. Her great-great-grandparents, the Sinykins, and their six children fled antisemitism in Russia and arrived in the United States at the turn of the 20th century, ultimately settling on a 160-acre homestead in South Dakota. Over the next few decades, despite tough years on a merciless prairie and multiple setbacks, the Sinykins became an American immigrant success story.
What none of Clarren’s ancestors ever mentioned was that their land, the foundation for much of their wealth, had been cruelly taken from the Lakota by the United States government. By the time the Sinykins moved to South Dakota, America had broken hundreds of treaties with hundreds of Indigenous nations across the continent, and the land that had once been reserved for the seven bands of the Lakota had been diminished, splintered, and handed for free, or practically free, to white settlers. In The Cost of Free Land, Clarren melds investigative reporting with personal family history to reveal the intertwined stories of her family and the Lakota, and the devastating cycle of loss of Indigenous land, culture, and resources that continues today.
With deep empathy and clarity of purpose, Clarren grapples with the personal and national consequences of this legacy of violence and dispossession. What does it mean to survive oppression only to perpetuate and benefit from the oppression of others? By shining a light on the people and families tangled up in this country’s difficult history, The Cost of Free Land invites readers to consider their own culpability and what, now, can be done.
©2023 Rebecca Clarren (P)2023 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“A monumental piece of work… Clarren felt the urgent need to understand just how much her family had benefitted from the genocide and erasure of its land’s first people. The result is what will become a classic of personal journalism and memoir, a book to join Jesmyn Ward’s “Men We Reaped,” Terry Tempest Williams’ “Refuge” and Elissa Washuta’s “White Magic” as examples of work that sees the clear link between the personal and American culture and history.”—The Boston Globe
"With her powerful book, Clarren not only shares this hidden history, but continues to ‘pursue justice, to repair the world, to take responsibility for our part.'"—Jewish Book Council
"A timely new investigation . . . [the book] is inspiring important conversations across Jewish and indigenous communities about space, identity, and family history."—Lilith
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THE book for November, 2023!
- By Anonymous User on 11-19-23
By: Adam Mansbach
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The Executioner's Song
- By: Norman Mailer
- Narrated by: Maxwell Hamilton
- Length: 42 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Norman Mailer's Pulitzer Prize-winning and unforgettable classic about convicted killer Gary Gilmore now in audio. Arguably the greatest book from America's most heroically ambitious writer, The Executioner's Song follows the short, blighted life of Gary Gilmore who became famous after he robbed two men in 1976 and killed them in cold blood. After being tried and convicted, he immediately insisted on being executed for his crime. To do so, he fought a system that seemed intent on keeping him alive long after it had sentenced him to death.
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Pulitzer-winner spoiled by numskulled narration
- By W Perry Hall on 05-21-18
By: Norman Mailer
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Introduction to Judaism
- By: Shai Cherry, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Shai Cherry
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Original Recording
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As a religion, culture, and civilization, Judaism has evolved in surprising ways during its long and remarkable history. In this series of 24 lectures, Professor Cherry explores this rich religious heritage from biblical times to today. From the first lecture on the Torah to the last on the Jews as the Chosen People, this course is packed with truly fascinating information.
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This lecture series is amazing
- By B & C on 08-23-15
By: Shai Cherry, and others
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Four Red Sweaters
- Powerful True Stories of Women and the Holocaust
- By: Lucy Adlington
- Narrated by: Esther Wane
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Jock Heidenstein, Anita Lasker, Chana Zumerkorn, and Regina Feldman all faced the Holocaust in different ways. While they did not know each other—in fact had never met—each had a red sweater that would play a major part in their lives. In this absorbing and deeply moving account, award-winning clothes historian Lucy Adlington documents their stories, knitting together the experiences that fragmented their families and their lives. Adlington immortalizes these young women whose resilience, skills, strength, and kindness accompanied them through the darkest events in human history.
By: Lucy Adlington
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Abraham
- One Nomad's Amazing Journey of Faith
- By: Charles R. Swindoll
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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When we rewind history to Abraham's era, we encounter people who concocted false superstitions to explain the unexplainable. Powerful kings claimed to be gods, building massive pyramids in an attempt to achieve immortality. Out of this mass of misunderstandings, this collage of confusion, one man emerged. Why, thousands of years later, are we still discussing the faith of this desert nomad? Chuck Swindoll answers that question and many more in this compelling and insightful biography that will inspire your own faith.
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Father of Faith
- By POTSY on 01-06-17
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Country of Ash
- A Jewish Doctor in Poland, 1939-1945
- By: Edward Reicher, Magda Bogin - translator
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren, Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 8 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Country of Ash is the starkly compelling, original chronicle of a Jewish doctor who miraculously survived near-certain death, first inside the Lodz and Warsaw ghettoes, where he was forced to treat the Gestapo, then on the Aryan side of Warsaw, where he hid under numerous disguises. He clandestinely recorded the terrible events he witnessed, but his manuscript disappeared during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. After the war, reunited with his wife and young daughter, he rewrote his story.
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Excellent
- By valia on 07-12-15
By: Edward Reicher, and others
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More, Please
- On Food, Fat, Bingeing, Longing, and the Lust for ""Enough""
- By: Emma Specter
- Narrated by: Erin deWard
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Millions of us use restrictive diets, intermittent fasting, IV therapies, and Ozempic abuse to shrink until we are sample-size acceptable. But for the 30 million Americans who live with eating disorders, it isn’t just about less. More, Please is a chronicle of a lifelong fixation with food—its power to soothe, to comfort, to offer a fleeting escape from the outside world—as well as an examination of the ways in which compulsory thinness, diet culture, and the seductive promise of “wellness” have resulted in warping countless Americans’ relationship with healthy eating.
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Good story, unbearable narration
- By Amazon Customer on 07-10-24
By: Emma Specter
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The Netanyahus
- An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family
- By: Joshua Cohen
- Narrated by: Joshua Cohen, David Duchovny, Ethan Herschenfeld
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Corbin College, not quite upstate New York, winter 1959-1960: Ruben Blum, a Jewish historian—but not an historian of the Jews—is co-opted onto a hiring committee to review the application of an exiled Israeli scholar specializing in the Spanish Inquisition. When Benzion Netanyahu shows up for an interview, family unexpectedly in tow, Blum plays the reluctant host to guests who proceed to lay waste to his American complacencies. Mixing fiction with nonfiction, the campus novel with the lecture, The Netanyahus is a wildly inventive comedy of blending, identity, and politics.
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Phillip Roth would certainly listen!
- By Martin on 01-17-22
By: Joshua Cohen
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A Ceiling Made of Eggshells
- By: Gail Carson Levine
- Narrated by: Carlotta Brentan
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Surrounded by her large family, Loma is happy living in the judería of Alcalá de Henares, Spain, and wants nothing more than to someday have a family of her own. Still, when her intimidating grandfather, her Belo, decides to bring her along on his travels, she's excited to join him. Belo has the ear of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, and Loma relishes her adventures with him, adventures that are beyond the scope of most girls of the time. She soon learns just how dangerous the world is for the Jews of Spain, and how her grandfather's influence keeps their people safe.
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Enthralling!
- By Kindle Customer on 08-12-21
What listeners say about The Cost of Free Land
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- dan
- 06-22-24
A disturbing history I was vaguely aware of.
I like the way the author tied her own personal history into the larger Lakota and US history. I enjoyed her advocacy for the writing of these wrongs. Also, it’s clear that she is an advocate.
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- Qat
- 11-11-23
Important and Personal History, Masterfully Told
A very important book to humanize and help people understand so much more about how our country was built to the detriment and near genocide of the Native Americans. Personal histories of two families and two peoples weave back and forth into broad historical context, building interesting and accessible stories, investigation, and skilled research. Clarren ends with suggestions as to how take some responsibility and move forward.
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- Karen Monsén
- 10-30-23
Very informative
I loved this book (audible version) and hope it reaches far and wide. Thank you Rebecca!
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- Jean R
- 11-06-23
Engaging and thought provoking
Extensively researched, well written interwoven stories of Jewish settler experiences and Native American experiences, noting some remarkable similarities between the two. Very nicely read by the author. The Native American history is a nice primer (including first person stories) for those unfamiliar with that material, and a stark, condensed reminder for those who already have some familiarity with the travesty.
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- Clare
- 03-18-25
I didn’t know that!
I thought I knew the history of the Midwest. It turns out I only knew half of it. Very interesting read ; especially for those who have any kind of historical ties to the area.
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- C. Stillman
- 12-11-23
Unique investigation of links between two threads of western expansion and U. S. Government Policies
The honesty with which Beck illustrates and acknowledges her early cluelessness about the Lakota perspective on land, where their people used to live is one thing I really appreciated. She uses that as a foundation for her investigation, and as a springboard for the non-Reader, who most likely is as ignorant in her first threat trip through Lakota lands. The story of her family’s flight from the Russian programs in Odessa, and their immigrant perspective living on hard to farm land though free of the Tsar’s persecution is a counterpoint to the story of the Lakota, who had that just been pushed off their land by the broken treaties, and policies of the United States government. Becca’s narration includes pretty much verbatim conversations with Lakota leaders, as well as with her rabbi in the books, con. I also appreciated her sharing examples of some organizations’ efforts to remedy the injustices of the past as well as of her own family’s specific steps in that endeavor.
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- James R. Small
- 12-10-23
Well done. A great read and well-woven story of facts and stories abound
Ending seems a bit like a cliffhanger. When’s the sequel book?? I’ll be a reader of it! :-)
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