American Indian History: A Documentary Reader

This latest volume in Wiley-Blackwell’s ‘Uncovering the Past’ series conveys the premise that indigenous intellects were the equal of European intellects at the moment of conquest| that the people suffered a long period of decline for varied reasons| and that in the recent past they have made great strides in asserting themselves once again. With nearly a third of the volume dedicated to the ancient world through the eighteenth centuries| Townsend allows the documents to illuminate the richness of American Indian historical traditions and the strength of the efforts they made when the crisis came. The volume then moves on to extensive coverage of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries| completing an integral study of the American Indian experience.