The Return of the Native: American Indian Political Resurgence / Edition 1

by Stephen Cornell

Overview

An incisive look at American Indian and Euro-American relations from the seventeenth century to the present, this book focuses on how such relations—and Indian responses to them—have shaped contemporary Indian political fortunes. Cornell shows how, in the early days of colonization, Indians were able to maintain their nationhood by playing off the competing European powers; and how the American Revolution and westward expansion eventually caused Native Americans to lose their land, social cohesion, and economic independence. The final part of the book recounts the slow, steady reemergence of American Indian political power and identity, evidenced by militant political activism in the 1960s and early 1970s. By paying particular attention to the evolution of Indian groups as collective actors and to changes over time in Indian political opportunities and their capacities to act on those opportunities, Cornell traces the Indian path from power to powerlessness and back to power again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195065756
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	07/19/1990
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	9.16(w) x 5.96(h) x 0.77(d)

About the Author

University of California, San Diego

Editorial Reviews

"It should be required reading for all students of Indian and white relations."—Journal of American Ethnic History

"Important and ambitious....Interesting, broad, and engaging. It promises an understanding of a relatively unexamined, evocative, and both tragic and heroic province of American ethnic diversity and political mobilization."—American Journal of Sociology

"An excellent work that adroitly handles an exceedingly complex subject."—C. Matthew Snipp, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"A fascinating overview of early American Indian relations, specifically, how the tribes lost land, independence, and power, but—by playing one official body off another—were able to maintain some degree of freedom."—Booklist

"Well written and persuasively argued, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars in the social sciences and to discerning general readers."—Choice

From the Publisher