Through Indian Eyes
Brenda Jackson, Ronald L. McDonald, Reader's Digest. Reader's Digest Association, $40 (400pp) ISBN 978-0-89577-819-2
Seldom have Native American culture and history been recreated with the immediacy and panoramic scope given by this breathtakingly illustrated volume. Beginning with the waves of Asian migrants to North America at the end of the last ice age, and extending to recent, hard-won victories in treaty enforcement and repatriation of sacred objects, it places special emphasis on Native Americans' daily experience and worldviews as expressed in customs, rituals, art, myths, religion, architecture. Events that resonate deep in the consciousness of Native Americans, such as General John Sullivan's scorched-earth campaign through Seneca country in 1779 on orders from George Washington, and the Pueblo Indians' successful revolt in 1680 against the Spanish, punctuate a crisply written narrative crammed with hundreds of dramatic color photographs, paintings, artifacts, maps, insets. The text is by the Reader's Digest staff and by noted authorities (Albert Hurtado, Peter Nabokov, Aldona Jonaitis, etc.) with the help of Alvin Josephy Jr., Robert Venables and other consultants. This is both a basic sourcebook and a magnificent visual repository. 750,000 first printing. (Jan.)
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Reviewed on: 04/01/1996
Genre: Nonfiction