'The Savage Mind' Ojibwe author on the violence America inherited

What if America’s violent past isn’t really in the past? What if it still lives in all of us today? Those are the questions at the heart of a new book, "The Savage Mind: An American Legacy."

Ojibwe author David Treuer began the book as a letter to his three children. Treuer argues that violence of the American frontier never really ended. It lives inside of us. 

Treuer is the son of a Jewish father and an Ojibwe mother. He and his brother grew up on the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. 

He earned his PhD in anthropology at the University of Michigan and he teaches at USC. His previous book, "The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee," was a national book award finalist. 

This weekend, there are two Q&A’s and book signing events for the book in metro Detroit. 

Treuer will speak at The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation Saturday Nov. 7. On Sunday, Nov. 8, he'll be at the Detroit Public Library main branch alongside public historian and published author and member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, Heather Bruegl.

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