Readings
Native American/Encounter History – The Books
Listed below are readings that cover this topic; when you choose a particular book, you will see links to several reviews of the book, in a PDF format. These reviews, for the most part, came out around the time of the book’s debut, and are generally chosen from respected scholarly journals. In the case of this particular theme, most of the reviews are taken from the William & Mary Quarterly, the Journal of American History, and the American Historical Review. Should you be aware of a more relevant review, we’d love to know about it.
The books themselves are arranged by date of publication, providing the graduate student with a rough chronology of the historiography of this theme.
You must have an active account with ALADIN in order to view these reviews, which you already have if you are a graduate student at American University. Have it operating in the background before accessing the reviews.
In addition to these journal reviews, ProjectHistory invites more current reviews by you, the American University graduate student. The historiography of this topic is constantly evolving, and any scholarship, no matter how brilliant, eventually becomes dated.
Furthermore, new scholarship is being generated all the time, and in order for this site to be of continuing benefit to everyone, it is important that new, relevant scholarship to be added and the site be updated. If you or your professor come across something that you feel would benefit the theme, ProjectHistory would be honored to be able to include it on this site. Just email todd@projecthistory.net with the book, article, or review, and we will gladly add it to collection.
Now, on to the readings!
Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early North America. By Gary Nash. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1974. xvii + 350 pp. Maps, illustrations, notes, bibliographic essay, and index.)
The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest. By Francis Jennings. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Institute of Early American Culture and History, 1975. xvii + 369 pp. Maps, illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography and index.)
Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England. By William Cronon. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983. xiii + 241 pp. Notes, bibliographic essay, and index.)
The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America.By James Axtell. The Cultural Origins of North America. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Pp. xviii, 389)
Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900. By Alfred.W. Crosby. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. xvi + 368 pp.)
The Indians’ New World: Catawbas and their Neighbors from European Contact through the Era of Removal. By James H. Merrell. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991. 400 pp.)
The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815. By Richard White. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. xvi + 544 pp.)
When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846. By Ramon A. Gutierrez. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991. xxxiii + 424 pp.)
A Spirited Resistance: The North American Struggle for Unity, 1745-1815. By Gregory Evans Dowd. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. xxvi + 261 pp.)
The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities. By Colin G. Calloway. (New York: Free Press, 1995. xvi, 304 pp.)
New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America. By Colin G. Calloway. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. xxiv, 229 pp.)
Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492-1650. By Noble David Cook. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. xiii + 248).
Indians and English: Facing Off in Early America. By Karen Ordahl Kupperman. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. xiv, 297 pp.)
Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America. By Daniel K. Richter. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. xii, 317pp.)
Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands. By James F. Brooks. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. xii, 419 pp.)
The Native Ground: Indians and Colonists in the Heart of the Continent. By Kathleen DuVal. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. 320 pp.)