The Book Prize Index

God's Red Son: The Ghost Dance Religion and the Making of Modern America

Louis S. Warren

"In 1890, on Indian reservations across the West, followers of a new religion danced in circles until they collapsed into trances. In an attempt to suppress this new faith, the US Army killed over two hundred Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee Creek. Louis Warren's God's Red Son offers a startling new view of the religion known as the Ghost Dance, from its origins in the visions of a Northern Paiute named Wovoka to the tragedy in South Dakota. To this day, the Ghost Dance remains widely mischaracterized as a primitive and failed effort by Indian militants to resist American conquest and return to traditional ways. In fact, followers of the Ghost Dance sought to thrive in modern America by working for wages, farming the land, and educating their children, tenets that helped the religion endure for decades after Wounded Knee.

HistoryAmerican History · medium confidenceAmerican History81 signalsLlm Classifier: American History -> American HistoryKeyword Classifier: American History -> American HistoryTopic Classifier: Indigenous History -> American HistoryIndigenous HistoryFood, Agriculture & LandReligion & Religious MovementsFamily, Childhood & Adoption

Award History

1 wins · 1 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Bancroft PrizeMajor2018WinnerOfficial source
View all award history (1)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

    These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.

    • Wovoka62%

  2. 02 Central places

    • Wounded Knee Creek78%
    Show lower-confidence suggestions

    These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.

    • South Dakota55%

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    Contrary to the view that the Ghost Dance was a failed resistance, its followers sought to thrive in modern America through wages, farming, and educating children, enabling the religion to endure after Wounded Knee.

    Model confidence 60%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    65 / 100 academic

    Academic

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 74%.