r/cushvlog • u/kjevb • 5d ago

Am I imagining a book recommendation?

I feel like I remember, either from a Cushvlog or maybe an episode of Hingepoints, Matt talking about a book that was an alternate history novel where the Native Americans were exposed to European diseases much earlier, and thus were more resistant to them when the actual colonization began. Was he just theorizing a novel, or does this book actually exist? Does anyone else remember what I’m talking about?

As a bonus, does anyone know of books that fit this description? The closest I’ve found is The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson, but that isn’t quite what I’m imagining here.

16 Upvotes

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u/Party_Music2288 5d ago

Years of rice and salt is amazing btw

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u/kjevb 5d ago

It’s great. I’m reading it right now.

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u/eeeezypeezy 5d ago

Yeah, easily one of my favorite novels. I'm a big KSR-head and it's maybe the most straight up gorgeous his prose has ever been.

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u/Party_Music2288 5d ago

The speech the Kerala gives at the end of his chapter is perhaps the best non socialist rationale for socialist government. Wish we could do a Strategic Command version of the grear YoRaS world war..

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u/BrocolliHighkicks 5d ago

Sounds like Civilizations by Laurent Binet.

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u/kjevb 5d ago

Holy hell this might be it! Did Matt ever talk about this book?

1

u/sliferz 4d ago

I don’t recall Matt talking about it, but Alexander Aviña has mentioned this book on both Trillbillies and Chapo if I recall correctly.

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u/Party_Music2288 5d ago

Pretty solid, though follows the plot of our history a bit too closely. Hhhh by him is transcedent

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u/habitus_victim 5d ago

I'm pretty sure he wasn't talking about Cahokia Jazz but I'm real confident in recommending it to any cushvlog fan. A great alternate history detective noir that is super attentive to historical dynamics and class politics

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u/drizzly_november 4d ago

Yeah, loved that book. The background is exactly what OP is describing too: the smallpox that first reaches the Americas is a less deadly variant that confers immunity on survivors, so an indigenous city-state is able to endure right about where St. Louis is today.

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u/kjevb 4d ago

Sounds awesome, adding it to my list for sure.

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u/eproteus 5d ago

Also sounds like Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card. It’s been forever since I read it, and I know his politics are problematic… but I remember it being really good. Premise is humanly fucks itself right before inventing time travel - and the engineers decide settling America was the moment it all went wrong. So they do a bunch of stuff to sabotage colonization, including introducing smallpox a couple hundred years before.

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u/GeorgeFranklyMathnet 5d ago

I'm sure it's good, and that Card gives his characters principled reasons for choosing that moment in history. But it reminds me of this silly Tom the Dancing Bug about a omniscient being trying to time travel to prevent the "real" original sin...

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u/eproteus 5d ago

I laughed at that.

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u/AlltheVibesinRojava 4d ago

You might be thinking of Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford. It’s a solid read. Set in the 20s in a quasi independent indigenous statelet.