I found Dr. Brown, in conjunction with Dr. Churchill, to have written a very dry and non-useful text. It fails to provide the undergraduate student with the resources and background information that more highly touted books offer. There are a few examples that are somewhat helpful, but overall I found myself having to use reference texts to supplement this one. I am not a math major, but am continually searching for good math texts to help me grasp the fundamentals of more difficult topics. I did not find that help here. Too much 'math prose' and not enough to-the-point definitions and examples, which is the cry of every non-math major. Their treatment of the Laplacian is not even worth the bother of placing it in the book. The physical size of the book is small, (9 1/2 by 6") with 335 pages. Not nearly enough for the treatment of its titled subject.

That is, you can't find a better book on the subject at the undergraduate level!

This is a great book that gives precise examples which are easy to comprehend. Dr. Brown proves to be an excellent author once again.

Every white person needs to read this book. A real eye opener for us white people raised in the USA and educated in the public system where they blatantly disregard and brush over topics about Native Americans. We owe it to ourselves and the indigenous nations to attempt to understand these perspectives.

This book was my first Native American Political book. I first purchased it in 1997 in Boston. I am full blood, but was not raised in the light of my ansestors. I knew nothing of any traditions exept what Kevin Coster told me in Dances With Wolves. The fact of the matter is, when you can't beat em, join em. I decided in order to beat the white man at his own game, I must educate myself. This book offers information no one knows about. It is a good basis of information to come to an understanding of my people, and I feel it can help educate anyone who is ignorant to the fact. We need more books like this. We need them in our schools and need to have them readily available for the taking. Ward Churchill represents the facts that oppress today's Native Americans. I suggest it to anyone who wants an understanding of todays underlining issues for Native Americans and even the people of old.

Finally! A book that tells the truth of how it was like to a Native American in a racist and bigoted Amerika. This book tells us about what Native Americans went through, how they lived, and how they were dealt with by a country that didn't want them. This is a tell-all book that pulls no punches. It is not for the faint of heart or flag-waving fools that never question Amerika's history. A real eye-opener. Highly Recommended.

I think the only thing this book succeeds at is
at criticising leftist activism in north
america of the last decades. Makes some good
points about it's weaknesses. But as a criticism
of non-violence in general or as an advocacy of
violent or armed struggle it utterly fails.

Lousily argumented throughout.

The author doesn't even seem to have understood
that non-violence isn't equal to passivity.

Am still looking forward to read From a native son
though. Hope it holds more water than this one.

PACIFISM AS PATHOLOGY is an interesting little essay, being an introduction to the mindset and rationalizations of terrorists and pseudo-terrorist academics. Churchill's passionate denunciation of pacifist movements are hilarious in their own right, his satire is a biting critique of the shallow sanctimonies of pacifist protest in the Sixties. The limitations on this view, however, are in the transformation in moral consciousness that HAS galvanized criticism of government policy since Vietnam. Of course, this consciousness still has the milquetoast feel to it that Churchill criticizes, but policy makers are now almost overly-sensitive to perception and public relations as a result of the legacy of anti-war protest. The sad legacy of the pro-violence position is to be found in figures like Sara Jane Olson and the goofball revolutionary rhetoric of the Symbionese Liberation Army. Like the Weathermen, Frantz Fanon, and the SLA, Churchill's argument is devoid of any reasonable discussion of the ends to be reached via these means. This is the biggest obstacle to any argument in support of violent means, and it rarely seems overcome, either through theory or historical example (how many Chinese look back on the Cultural Revolution as the 'good ol' days'?). Churchill goes no further than discussing the illimitable joys of the "postrevolutionary context," euphemistic jargon devoid of any content if ever there was any.

"All persons who propose to improve the human race seem to me to be equally fraudulent." -- H.L. Mencken

The only sustainable argument for practicing violence is that it is strategic to achieving a legitimate end. Oblations to the "postrevolutionary context" are certainly underwhelming in this regard, and Churchill's historical appeals --despite commendable work in his footnotes-- are never sufficient for anything beside making fun of the pacifists.

Anyway, the weirder part of the book is Churchill's argument that pacifism is a psychological illness. This is really funny at first, but of course does not really hold up if you go the distance. Churchill roots pacifist practice in certain insecurities and anxieties of the future yuppies of America protesting Vietnam. However, this does not extend to pacifism per se, as he sort of grudgingly concedes with his examples of Buddhist self-immolaters. His main support rests on his criticisms of the Jews' acceptance of the death camp fate. All sorts of issues are engendered there, but ultimately Churchill is confusing metaphor with reality.

Pacifism is an ideological stance that might be analogous to a psychological condition via contorted argument, but that does not make it synonymous to the psychological condition. This makes his prescriptive "therapy" all the more hilarious, with its mandates of political indoctrination serving as medicine. The prognosis of political conditioning is designed to achieve yet another fanatic. I was reminded of the Soviets' use of psychiatry to demean and dehumanize political opposition with the stigma of diagnosis.

Really, all ideology could be characterized as a pathological condition, but that would ultimately, and no doubt unfortunately, include Churchill's own vague appeals to the benevolent society that would erupt after the revolution. Coupled with his therapy and belief in violence as a corrective, we easily see in this vision all the elements of Habermas' ideological superstructure used as an instrument of oppression. How many people ever build makeshift rafts to escape to Cuba? How many of the tens of thousands trying to get the hell out of Vietnam are nostalgic for their Democratic People's Paradise? Ultimately, totalitarian stupidities are the end product of these sorts of benighted fantasies, with the common people mutilated and digested in their own name to sustain these vicious machines. Those who have the luxury of being sentimental about them are tpically the well to do in the West. In the US, such fantasizers have mainly been a grab bag of pathetic angry-at-dad types, bankrobbers, and drug dealers. Their distinction comes from having coopted a revolutionary vocabulary into a garbled and senseless ideology to rationalize their angers and get on TV. Their position as historical curiosities, irrelevant to political discourse in America, proves the strategic irrelevance of their tactics, and certainly belies any moral power in PACIFISM AS PATHOLOGY.

Churchill's little essay, originally written in the mid-80s neither is nor purports to be the be-all/end-all articulation of the position involved.

It IS, however, a near-perfect antidote to the sanctimoniously self-serving gibberish penned by all the reviewers thus far, other than Derrick Jenson.

One can take particular exception to the assertion advanced by "a reader from Boulder" that there have been significant advances in the "nonviolent movement" since the 1960s. All one need do is LOOK AROUND to discern the sheer delusional falsity embodied in this standard "pacifist" rejoinder to Churchill's reflections.

But, then, this sort of delusional behavior adds up to one of Churchill's main points about the sham that parades itself as pacifism in North America, so maybe we all owe the Boulder reader a hearty "thank you" for having provided such a perfect illustration.

In any event, PACIFISM AS PATHOLOGY is well worth the minor amount of time required to give it a read. The fact is that it's a little gem, and the publisher should be commended for having made it generally available.