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Blood and Land: The Story of Native North America

Blood and Land: The Story of Native North America

by J.C.H.King (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2016

    $3.44
Synopsis

Blood and Land is a dazzling, panoramic account of the history and achievements of Native North Americans, and why they matter today. It is about why no understanding of the wider world is possible without comprehending the original inhabitants of the United States and Canada: Native Americans, First Nations and Arctic peoples. This highly personal book, based on years of travel and first-hand research in North America, introduces a deeply complex story, of myriad identities and determined ethnicities - from the desert Southwest to the high Arctic, from first contact between Europeans and Native Americans to the challenges of Native leadership today. Instead of writing a chronological history, King confronts the reader with the paradoxes, diversity and successes of Native North Americans. Their astonishing ingenuity and supple intelligence enabled, after centuries of suffering both violence and dispossession, a striking level of recovery, optimism and autonomy in the twenty-first century. Beautifully illustrated and filled with arresting and surprising stories, Blood and Land looks well beyond the 'feathers-and-failure' narratives beloved by historians to show us Native North America as it was and is.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 672
 Edition: UK ed.
 Publisher: Allen Lane
Published: 25 Aug 2016
ISBN 10: 0241282357
ISBN 13: 9780241282359
Book Overview: Beautifully illustrated and filled with arresting and surprising stories, Blood and Land looks well beyond the 'feathers-and-failure' narratives beloved by historians.

Media Reviews
A panoramic portrait ... a kaleidoscope structure ... a delight for the browsers and sifters among us who may be more engaged by the stories of early 20th century Kikapoo travelling snake-oil salesmen than by the minutiae of constitutional haggling and treaty-making -- Melanie McGrath * Evening Standard *
Resisting the tendency toward generalisation that is the inherent danger of thematic survey, King emphasises singularity, contrast and diversification ... Each chapter is compendious, crammed with a treasure of information, statistics, masterfully synthetic discussions and judiciously chosen anecdote ... the early sections of the chapter on language and literature contain the most lucid and succinct discussion of the nature, origin and diversification of Native American languages - a subject central to the understanding of Native American history - that I have ever read ... [an] excellent panoramic survey -- Ciaran Brady * Irish Times *
Blood and Land is an account - at least from my American perspective - sorely needed ... the result is a kaleidoscopic view of Native American history refreshing and rollicking, and not unlike tits fractured reality ... in short, general histories of Native America are difficult to write and King does a superlative job -- David Bahr * Standpoint *
Whereas many treatments of aboriginal histories have focused on tropes of trauma, tragedy and disappearance, the emphasis here is on success ... Blood and Land is to be commended for its ambition. The subjects covered are fascinating ... an eminently readable work, there is a sense that King, as a choreographer and curator, is having great fun presenting us with a procession of stories, characters and incidents -- Karen Jones * BBC History Magazine *
King sees through clear and intelligent eyes, with a scholarship that is deep, wide, and liberated from cliche or stereotype, the vast complexities and nuances that motivate and shape not only the past but, even more important, the present and future of the first citizens of North America. -- W. Richard West, Jr. * Founding Director, Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian *
This panoramic study of Native North American history has remarkable intellectual honesty and scope -- Joy Porter * History Today *
Author Bio
J.C.H. King is currently the von Hugel Fellow at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. He worked at the British Museum for nearly forty years. Latterly he was the Keeper of Anthropology in what is now the Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas. He has travelled extensively in North America, from the California Missions to Nunavut, and the Everglades to Point Barrow, working with many different Native people to understand cultures and to explain difficult histories for a general public.