This Land Was Theirs is actually a textbook designed for use in Native American anthropology classes. The authors take no particular bias and present the facts in an interesting narrative. They do not attempt to paint a lovely picture but include the bad right alongside the good. They present traditional and contemporary ways, showing how and why the changes occurred. This edition has added the last two decades for a truly modern overview of the Native American conditions. The authors found that "for most tribes, published studies dealing with the most recent past do not exist."

The first two chapters give general information about Native Americans as a whole. They answer general questions, explain how they have been studied, and the way the tribes are grouped. The second chapter explains the generalities of the contact between Native American and other races. It discusses the "landmark" Indian policies. The authors introduce and explain the concept of Pan-Indianism. They discuss the major themes of the Native culture in recent years. Of course, gambling and alcohol made the top ten. Strangely enough, the diabetes epidemic did not.

The next twelve chapters are each devoted to a single group: Tlingit, Cherokee, Crow, Navajo, and so forth. These groups were selected because they are representative of a specific environment and way of life. Each chapter includes historical information, their origin myth, a description of their physical appearance, their lifestyle, clothing, foods, and adornments. Their social system is detailed, including the religious, political, and entertainment aspects. From their aboriginal life to their modern art, this book covers everything about the tribe.

The final chapter is titled: Current Realities, Fears, and Hopes. This short chapter gives a view of the issues Native Americans face today. The final page makes a strong statement: "Indians are the longest oppressed minority in North America and the only persons with a fundamental right to own and control this country."

This is a fantastic book to read for information on many different tribes. It is a wonderful reference to have at hand. It is loaded with maps, diagrams, illustrations, and photographs. If you simply study the pictures and read their captions, you will learn a lot. But if you read this book thoroughly, you will develop a great appreciate and understanding of the Native American Peoples.

I highly recommend this book.

Reprinted from Gotta Write Network Online

Now in a fully updated and expanded sixth edition, This Land Was Theirs: A Study Of Native Americans examines the traditional and contemporary lifeways of twelve North American native tribes ranging from the subarctic Chipewyan to the Natchez of Mississippi. Each tribe represents a major culture area and socioeconomic spectrum. Of particular note is a global discussion of contemporary Native American issues, with each chapter's updates being based on the authors' extensive personal visits to each extant group discussed. New for this sixth edition is a chapter on the Yurok of California. A highly recommended addition to Native American Studies reading lists, This Land Was Theirs is enhanced with a glossary and pronunciation guide.

This textbook is great! It gives very detailed information on how the North American Indians lived before contact with "Euro-Americans", as well as post-contact.

New Yorkers see constant small changes in their city, and the cumulative effect of those changes can remake the character and composition of a neighborhood almost overnight. That is what happened in Brownsville during the late 1950s and early 1960s. What had been an entirely Jewish neighborhood of sidewalk synagogues and old-world customs became an entirely black and Latino neighborhood. Pritchett captures that period of change and the various players -- community activists, business interests, government agencies and politicians -- masterfully. He tells a poignant story of idealistic neighborhood leaders who fought for integrated public housing to meet the needs of their community and were instead given massive projects built to house the city's poor who had been displaced by urban renewal. This is a great book for anyone interested in New York or urban history generally.

Anyone with an interest in Native Americans (American Indians, First Nations) should begin by reading Oswalt and Neely. This Land Was Theirs is both informative and inspirational.

Exile As Found

Ollie Harrington's life and career intersected with notable as well as infamous African-Americans of his generation, among them Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, Richard Wright, Walter White, Adam Clayton Powell, Beauford Delaney, Howard Cousins, Chester Himes, and James Baldwin. Variously described as a raconteur par excellence, acerbic critic of U.S. domestic and international policy, a man gifted with extraordinary wit, insight, and the genius with which to represent them through his art, Harrington's own life and career has yet to be adequately explored and interpreted. M. Thomas Inge's compilation of nine of Harrington's essays is a cautious step in that direction. Published one year after "Dark Laughter: The Satiric Art of Oliver W. Harrington," Inge as editor of both volumes fails to fully flesh out the complex man behind both art and words.

Fortunately, this is of little consequence. Harrington's essays speak eloquently enough for themselves. Additionally, both the first of these essays, "The Last Days of Richard Wright," as well as the profound friendship Harrington and Richard Wright shared are sensitively contextualized and elucidated in a perceptive "Introduction" by Julia Wright, Richard Wright's eldest daughter. Harrington's controversial essay, first published in Ebony magazine in 1961, continues to raise questions surrounding the peculiar circumstances of Richard Wright's death. Through it, we are brought into the frighteningly dangerous, alienated, oftentimes paranoid world of the expatriate-- a world further problematized by the politics of race, both American and international, and the personal and professional rivalries within the Parisian Black expatriate community that continuously threatened its fragile makeup. Overall, Harrington's essays are mimetic, faithfully, yet ironically recording a world both treacherous and absurd; where perfidy poignantly gives way to satire and laughter; where ultimately, one is left to muse what it means to be "Black," as well as an "American" without a country-- in fact, an exile, twice over.

One senses that Harrington's narration and dramatization of the verisimilitudes of historical events, from topical pieces such as the birth of his best-known character, "Brother Bootsie," ruminations on his career in the U.S. and Europe, to personal reflections on his relationships with luminaries Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, and Paul Robeson, come from a deep sense of moral outrage over how much the United States lost and continues to loose given what W.E.B. du Bois defined as the central problem of the twentieth century. It is high time that Harrington, a major political wit and witness of the last century receives the attention that eluded him during his own lifetime.

I read this book years ago. Haunting. Who would have thought that a book about agriculture in America could qualify as literature. What Berry says in this book should wake you up (it woke me up, and that is enough to expect from a non-fiction work). But it is not just the facts that make this book. The writing is extraordinary. It is well researched. The ideas are presented in a very sober and direct manner. And at the same time, it is no dispassionate account. That is what was so striking to me on first reading. It is written as if the author were trying to restrain himself, holding back. And by doing so, it creates a sort of tension -- between the lines -- that you can feel from cover to cover. I don't think that I have ever read another book since that oozed so much of anger without ever stating the anger outright. Because of this book, I've gone on to read most of Berry's work as it has appeared, and I would recommend it all. But start with this one. It breathes fire.

Berry writes in a very eloquent and poignant manner to enlighten readers about the big American misconception that modern agriculture and technology is the only way to prosper. It's time for education, politics, and the public make intelligent decisions based on real consequences that affect the land, our health, and common bonds, and to look beyond the narrow minded system of profits and production. I recommend this book to any person who cares about the environment, agriculture, and public policy.

This was the first Wendell Berry book I ever read. Berry is a Kentucky farmer and a prolific poet, essayist, and novelist. Since it was first published nearly twenty-five years ago, I have reread this Sierra Club classic many times. It remains as relevant today as when it was written. In fact, Berry notes in the 1986 Preface, "every problem I dealt with in this book . . . has grown worse since the book was written" (p. viii).

Americans are alienated from the land and from each other. This is the theme that resonates through the nine chapters--essays, really--of Berry's book. Because our modern society is dedicated to the mechanistic pursuit of products and profit, it suffers the loss of community, the devaluation of human work, and the destruction of land. "The modern urban-industrialized society is based on a series of radical disconnections between body and soul, husband and wife, marriage and community, community and the earth. At each of these points of disconnection the collaboration of corporation, government, and expert sets up a profit-making enterprise that results in the further dismemberment and impoverishment of the Creation" (p. 137), Berry writes in "The Body and the Earth." Intending only to read the passages on fidelity contained within that essay, I ended up rereading Berry's book cover to cover today.

"Marriage and the care of the earth are each other's disciplines" (p. 132) In discussing marital fidelity, Berry notes that "there is an uncanny resemblance between our behavior toward each other and our behavior toward the earth" (p. 124). For Berry, fidelity can be seen "as the necessary discipline of sexuality, the practical definition of sexual responsibility, or the definition of the moral limits within which such responsibility can be conceived and enacted. The forsaking of all others is a keeping of faith, not just with the chosen one, but with the ones forsaken. The marriage vow unites not just a woman and a man with each other; it unites each of them with the community in a vow of sexual responsibility toward all others. The whole community is married, realizes its essential unity, in each of its marriages" (p. 122). In other words, "where we live and who we live there with define the terms of our relationship to the world and to humanity" (p. 123). Fidelity leads us "to the highest joy we can know: that of union, communion, atonement (in the root sense of at-one-ment)" (p. 122).

THE UNSETTLING OF AMERICA, however, is about more than fidelity metaphors. In the book's title essay, Berry observes that today, "the most numerous heirs of the farmers of Lexington and Concord are the little groups scattered all over the country whose names begin with 'Save': Save our Land, Save the Valley, Save our Mountains, Save our Farmland . . . people without official sanction . . . who are struggling to preserve their places, their values, and their lives as they know them and prefer to live them against the agencies of their own government which are using their own tax moneys against them" (p. 5). "No longer does human life rise from the earth like a pyramid, broadly and considerately founded upon its sources," Berry writes in "The Ecological Crisis as a Crisis of Character." "Now it scatters itself out in a reckless horizontal sprawl, like a disorderly city whose suburbs and pavements destroy the fields" (p. 21). In that essay, Berry is critical not only of the "supposedly fortunate citizen," interested only in "making money and entertaining himself" (p. 20) with irresponsible consumption (p. 24), but also of the Sierra Club (his publisher). In another essay, Berry argues that "the only possible guarantee of the future is responsible behavior in the present" (p. 58). "We must cleanse ourselves of slovenliness, laziness, and waste," he writes. "We must learn to discipline ourselves, to restrain ourselves, to need less, to care more for the needs of others. We must understand what the health of the earth requires, and we must put that before all other needs" (pp. 65-6).

Unsettling more often than not, readers will find words to live by in this insightful Berry classic. This passionate book has the potential to change your life.

G. Merritt

For a paperback at a modest price, this book is wonderful. I highly recommend it. It is more historical and serious in its focus, and is not really a design-oriented book for use as a reference for decorating. It has some great photographs of stately interiors with Federal style furniture and decor (related to Empire style, Adam style, and Neoclassical style in Europe of the late 18th and early 19th Century). The photographs are all in color. This is an abridged version of the earlier hardcover edition that is out of print, which I considered purchasing. However, it is unclear how many additional photographs the hardciver edition provides; from what I can tell it is only about 20 more than are in this paperback edition.

Wendell Garrett has done students of interior design and architecture a very great service with this modestly priced history of America's Federal style. His concise and accurate text is amply matched by Paul Rocheleau's handsome photographs.

There is so much to learn, even for amateur students of American architectural history. We hear about Palladio, Robert Adam, Christopher Wren and others who influenced the American Federal style, but we also learn what was going on in the American colonies in a religious, economic, and legal sense--all of which helped to affect the shape and style of American architectural and decorative tastes.

One of the most interesting things is learning how American craftsmen, builders and architects (many of whom were slaves) were influenced by the latest European styles. American styles in everything, from dress to furniture to homes, tended to be more plainspoken and stripped down to the bare essentials than were their European counterparts.

This is an absolutely fascinating read, and a visual treat for anyone who is even remotely interested in the American Federal style.

Paul Nabhan's latest book is a delight to read. His clear writing style and effective way of illustrating important points gives the reader a pleasant break from the more technical books on the topic of seed evolution and dispersion. But don't be deceived by its ease of reading, the book is full of facts about early native agricultural practices in North and Central America, contains warnings about our loss of natural vegetation, especially rain forests, and tells of our rapid loss of plant diversity.

Dr. Nabhan is the cofounder of an organization called Native Seeds and is currently Assistant Director of the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona. In these dual roles he has had ample opportunity to observe what is happening to our natural vegetation and to record how the diversity of plants in our world continues to shrink at an alarming rate.

His book is divided into a series of chapters each with names intended to draw the reader's interest. Examples include: "Turning Foxholes into Compost Heaps," "Drowning in a Shallow Gene Pool," and "Invisible Erosion." Each of his 12 chapters focuses on an important point. The first one presents an interesting history of plant evolution from the earliest Paleozoic times through the late Cenozoic and explains how the large, plant gene pool created the wonderful diversity we have all come to enjoy. In the next several chapters Dr. Nabhan first addresses the great diversity of plants found in forests of the wet and dry tropics and next speaks about how this great diversity led to the emergence of many cultigens we now depend upon for our staples. He also points with alarm to how rapidly this diversity is being lost as large areas are converted to agricultural lands or are clear cut for their lumber. Other chapters focus on the need for saving examples of seeds from plants that are becoming extinct and the advantages in tropical areas of using local plant species and local farming techniques instead of introduced hybrid plants and "modern" agricultural techniques. In later chapters Dr. Nabhan chronicles the demise of wild rice in the Great Lakes region, the near loss of a species of rare gourd in Florida, and why the production of maize in many areas of the northern Great Plains is not nearly as great today as it was in past generations. Finally, he offers a word of caution to plant geneticists saying that they could learn a lot from looking at the problems associated with the raising of domestic turkeys.

The main theme of Dr. Nabhan's book focuses on the need for plant diversity and how the maintaining of a wide gene pool for each species is critical for the survival of each species. All of this, he cautions, has direct effects upon mankind because many of these plants form elements of our primary food supply. Throughout the book the author inserts brief warnings for the reader to ponder. On page 27, for example, the author notes the prevailing attitude among many plant geneticists. He quotes one of them as saying, "If we need rare strains to breed a stronger variety of grain in the event of an epidemic, we go out and collect them." The problem, as Dr. Nabhan notes, is that already for many plants there are no longer wild strains to use.