Blood and Land: The Story of Native North America

by J.C.H. King

Overview

This history is about why no understanding of the wider world is possible without comprehending the original inhabitants of the U.S. and Canada: Native Americans, First Nations and Arctic peoples. Highly personal book and based on years of first-hand research, this book introduces a deeply complex story, of myriad identities and determined ethnicities—from the desert Southwest to the high Arctic, from first contact between Europeans and Native Americans to the challenges of Native leadership today. King confronts the reader with the paradoxes, diversity and successes of Native North Americans. Their astonishing ingenuity and supple intelligence enabled, after centuries of suffering violence and dispossession, a striking level of recovery and optimism in the 21st century. Beautifully illustrated and filled with arresting stories, Blood and Land looks well beyond the "feathers-and-failure" narratives beloved by historians to show us Native North America as it was and is.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780141976303
Publisher:	Penguin UK
Publication date:	10/01/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	672
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

J.C.H. King is currently the von Hügel Fellow at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. He has traveled extensively in North America, working with many different Native people to understand cultures and to explain difficult histories for a general public.

Editorial Reviews

"A history of resilience . . . sweeping, comprehensive . . . it's a story that has been waiting to be told." —Guardian


"Blood and Land is an account—at least from my American perspective—sorely needed . . . general histories of Native America are difficult to write and King does a superlative job." —Standpoint


"Blood and Land is to be commended for its ambition. The subjects covered are fascinating . . . an eminently readable work." —BBC History Magazine


"A panoramic portrait . . . a delight for the browsers and sifters among us who may be more engaged by the stories of early 20th century Kikapoo travelling snake-oil salesmen than by the minutiae of constitutional haggling and treaty-making." —Evening Standard


"King sees through clear and intelligent eyes, with a scholarship that is deep, wide, and liberated from cliché or stereotype, the vast complexities and nuances that motivate and shape not only the past but, even more important, the present and future of the first citizens of North America." —W. Richard West, Jr., Founding Director, Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian

From the Publisher