Atlas of Indian Nations

"The land made the first people of North America," insists Ojibwe scholar Treuer (Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians but Were Afraid to Ask), and in this gorgeously illustrated volume employs the atlas format to demonstrate this reality. Chock full of historical and contemporary maps, photographs, and paintings, this smart hybrid of art book and textbook is irresistible to leaf through because of the eye-catching images on every page. But Treuer's clear, accessible text is the complementary gem. The book is divided into eight chapters based on geographical region, each concluding with a set of tribal histories. Forming the core of each chapter are gripping stories of events such as the Trail of Tears and the Battle of Little Bighorn, and brief biographies of notable figures such as the Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph. Not strictly a history book, Treuer's focus on the primacy of land also suggests the interconnection of past and present. In the Arctic and Subarctic, for instance, the impact of climate change on local ecology underscores the contemporary problems, and thus potentially massive cultural changes, faced by local indigenous peoples. This happened before on the Great Plains in the 1870s, when whites killed millions of buffalo. Land, nature, and culture, as Treuer shows, are always intertwined. Illus. (Oct.)