At first I thought that this book was yet another revisionist history of Native/Nature relations. However, I recently had an opportunity to interview Professor Krech and realized that much of his argument has been misunderstood and caricatured by people on both the right and the left of the political spectrum. Krech is not trying to state that Natives do not have a particular respect for nature but rather that their actions were often not congruent with the Western notion of "conservation" a la Gifford Pinchot or Aldo Leopold and certainly not the kind of "preservation" ethic articulated by Muir. Krech is deeply aware of the Native respect for nature and has lived and worked with native communities in Northern Canada.

My only problem with the book is that he does not address the resurgence of native environmentalism in much detail. The work of Winona La Duke, Tom Goldtooth, Ward Churchill and others is briefly mentioned at the end but not much is provided in terms of how this movement has arisen. In my interview, I questioned him about this and he responded with great respect for native environmentalists, saying that he knew that their feelings were genuine and grounded in native history to some extent. However, their feelings for the environment have been realized in a modern context that is somewhat different from the less self-conscious relationship which ancestral Indians had with nature. Critics of Krech should certainly give him the benefit of the doubt and read his earlier works, particularly his criticism of Calvin Martin's first book (Keepers of the Game). Interestingly enough Martin has since changed his views and has taken a much more mystical approach to describing Native / environmental relations in his recent treatise: The Way of the Human Being". So please, reviewers and readers, try to step back for a moment and read this as an academic work which was well-intentioned, but perhaps needed another chapter at the end, further explicating the current rise of native environmentalism.

In this book, Krech sets out to contradict popular perceptions of Native Americans as perfect beings living in harmony with their environments. This doesn't sound like a very nice thing to do at first, but the author clearly states that he feels such images are not only inaccurate generalizations based on biased, outdated European stereotypes, but are dehumanizing in their suggestion that native people are "natural" animals rather than "cultural" humans. He goes on to present a number of case studies showing situations in which Native Americans were indeed cultural humans not living in perfect ecological balance with their surroundings. His treatment of the archaeological evidence is pretty thorough and unbiased. His historical case studies, while relying a bit heavily on potentially biased historic records by White settlers, remain fairly convincing examples of situations in which Native Americans were not perfect conservationists. Unfortunately, after this array of case studies it can be easy to forget that Krech's stated reasons for examining them were to present Native Americans as active human beings rather than passive stereotypes. Instead, readers can end up with a negative feeling about Native American land use practices in general or about Krech in particular, as the reviews below point out. In spite of these flaws, however, the book does raise interesting questions about how perceptions of Native Americans are constructed (both by native people themselves and by others) and about how we should approach environmental issues (including our definition of a "natural" environment) we grapple with today. His writing is clear and issues are presented in a fairly understandable way for a general audience, not just dusty academic types. Although you may not agree with all of the book's conclusions, the issues it raises make it very worthwhle reading material for anyone interested in environmental impact and Native Americans in the past and today.

Although written in an academic style still a very interesting read. Dispells the myth of the uber-conservationist Indian and replaces it with a more factual, individual, and realistic representation of Native Americans.

Many of the reviewers of the book seem to apologize for the information presented and the conclusions that others might reach because of it. The facts are accurate, but truth is not in general favor these days