The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization, and Resistance

By: Jaimes, M. Annette

Book Overview

This unprecedented anthology has quickly become the classic text for all who want to understand the problems confronted by native people in North America. Includes, among other topics, treaty rights... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0896084248
• ISBN13: 9780896084247
• Release Date: July 1999
• Publisher: South End Press
• Length: 468 Pages
• Weight: 1.23 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

collection of important essays

This collection of important essays examines many of the issues confronting modern Native American tribes in their search for self-determination, religious freedom, water rights, land rights and freedom from 'radioactive colonization.' While there is much here of substance there could also be less extreme ranting and more thoughtful explanations what the actual state of native America is in the 21st century. The fact that the books sub-title is 'genocide' and it begins with a chapter about Sand Creek 'the morning after' the massacre seems to indicate that this text is mostly aiming to anger the reader. But there is much that is positive and forward thinking in native America, much that is visionary and not simply reactive, and this book could have used a little more about this and a little less about the 'struggle'. Seth J. Frantzman

Required Reading

My only wish is that there were a 2nd edition of this book with an update of how the landscape has changed since it was first published in 1992. This book captured me and held me and while it filled me with sorrow, the fact of its existence, that these writers are so passionate about getting the truth out there, fills me with a profound hope.

Seminal work on the state of Native America

This book is the cornerstone of my library on contemporary Native America. As a Quinault-Cowlitz woman who has struggled with maintaining her identity in a world hungry for John Wayne's Indians with feathers, I found this work a profound relief from most of what is available. Jaimes is the editor of Ward Churchill's best book to date: Fantasies of the Master Race. Here she shows an even greater expertise in bringing together some of the most profound and prominent feminist voices in the contemporary pro-Indian movement.

A great introduction to Native Politics and controversies.

I've recommended this elsewhere to people who innocently consume fake Native American texts (e.g., Castaneda's): this is the real thing. Its leanings are pretty radical, and some of its statistics are -- well, those citing them obviously have a vested interest in maximizing the numbers. But it's got some great arguments in it, some descriptions of events that I'm sure weren't in your middle school history texts, and some beautiful prose as a bonus. Check it out.