History : Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies)

Contrary to the white man's early expectations, the Indian tribes of North America neither vanished nor assimilated. Despite almost four hundred years of contact with the dominant--and often domineering--Western civilization, Native Americans have maintained their cultural identity, the size, social organization, and frequently the location of their population, and their unique position before the law. Now brought up to date with a new introduction by Peter Iverson, this classic book reviews the history of contact between whites and Indians, explaining how the aboriginal inhabitants of North America have managed to remain an ethnic and cultural enclave within American and Canadian society from colonial times to the present day. The late D'Arcy McNickle--renowned anthropologist and member of the Flathead Tribe of Montana--shows that while Native Americans have always been eager to adopt the knowledge and technology of white society, they carefully adapt these changes to fit into their own culture. He maintains that by emphasizing tribal self-determination, the federal government can best help Native Americans to modernize and achieve independence even as they preserve their ancient heritage. Iverson's introduction to the new edition discusses McNickle's singular contribution to Native American Studies, and provides an overview of recent events and scholarship in the field. He has also brought up to date the appendix describing the geographical distribution of the principle tribes in the United States and Canada. With its comprehensive coverage and unique perspective, the new edition of Native American Tribalism is essential reading for those who want to understand the past and present of our first Americans.  more...

Price: $17.95

From Jamestown to 9/11, concerns about the landscape, husbanding of natural resources, and the health of our environment have been important to the American way of life. Natural Protest is the first collection of original essays to offer a cohesive social and political examination of environmental awareness, activism, and justice throughout American history. Editors Michael Egan and Jeff Crane have selected the finest new scholarship in the field, establishing this complex and fascinating subject firmly at the forefront of American historical study. Focused and thought-provoking, Natural Protest presents a cutting-edge perspective on American environmentalism and environmental history, providing an invaluable resource for anyone concerned about the ecological fate of the world around us. more...

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The new African immigrant experience more...

Price: $25.45

American Catholic women rarely surface as protagonists in histories of the United States. Offering a new perspective, Kathleen Sprows Cummings places Catholic women at the forefront of two defining developments of the Progressive Era: the emergence of the "New Woman" and Catholics' struggle to define their place in American culture. Cummings highlights four women: Chicago-based journalist Margaret Buchanan Sullivan; Sister Julia McGroarty, SND, founder of Trinity College in Washington, D.C., one of the first Catholic women's colleges; Philadelphia educator Sister Assisium McEvoy, SSJ; and Katherine Eleanor Conway, a Boston editor, public figure, and antisuffragist. Cummings uses each woman's story to explore how debates over Catholic identity were intertwined with the renegotiation of American gender roles. By examining female power within Catholic religious communities and organizations, she challenges the widespread assumption that women who were faithful members of a patriarchal church were incapable of pathbreaking work on behalf of women.Cummings emphasizes, though, that her subjects understood themselves to be far more marginalized as Catholics than they were as women. Whatever opportunities arose for American women in the early twentieth century, these Catholics pursued them not as "New Women" but as daughters of the "Old Faith." Cummings's analysis makes a strong argument for the need to devote more attention to religious identity as a factor in interpreting women's lives. more...

Price: $45.00

This work represents the first comparative study of the folk revival movement in Anglophone Canada and the United States and combines this with discussion of the way folk music intersected with, and was structured by, conceptions of national affinity and national identity. Students will find the book useful as an introduction, not only to key themes in the folk revival, but also to concepts in the study of national identity and to topics in American and Canadian cultural history. Academic specialists will encounter an alternative perspective from the more general, broad approach offered by earlier histories of the folk revival movement. more...

Price: $89.95