Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation

Lear offers an interpretation of the dreams, life, and actions of Crow chief Plenty Coups. I appreciated his concision and the focus of this argument as well as exploring a particular nation within the United States and their ability to navigate apocalyptic catastrophe.

This book explores the interesting premise that Plenty Coups- the Crow chief whose tenure spanned the years in which the tribe went from “free” and nomadic and the practice of counting coup to all the indignities of being confined to the reservation- was a visionary who maintained hope for something good. The book also is a treatise on hope (maybe mostly for philosophers) being a spectrum from a “pie in the sky” cop out to a manifestation of the highest moral character that humans achieve.

This is a valuable book for individuals working with people or groups of people whose way of life is undergoing change due to the pressure of outside forces. This includes refugees; immigrants; the young and adult children of refugees and immigrant; cultural and social minority communities; employees working long-term in a culturally and socially foreign country; individuals grieving a spouse or child; etc. The author looks at the intersection of social and cultural anthropology, philosophy, and ethics. To locate his heady analysis in real life circumstances, the author utilizes the autobiography-as-told-to Frank B. Linderman of Plenty-Coups, the last great Chief of the Crow. Plenty-Coups led his tribe through the transition from their show more Plains Indian life hunting buffalo and warring with neighboring land-hungry tribes into a world dominated by the Euro-American settlers, an absence of buffalo, and restriction to reservation land. His wisdom and radical hope enabled the Crow Nation to retain almost all their land.

To best appreciate Lear's book, it is necessary to first read "Plenty-Coups: Chief of the Crows" by Frank B. Linderman, preferably the 2002 "New Edition." show less