Following up Playing Indian, Deloria (director, Program in American Culture, Univ. of Michigan) uses his family roots among the Dakota Sioux to show how American Indians have labored to gain a place in modern society. The essays derive their strength as much from personal experiences as from detailed archival research. One fascinating essay documents the success of American Indian performers in Wild West shows and early motion pictures and compares their representations with actual late 19th-century history. Deloria also explores the tremendous role of sports in 20th-century American Indian culture by drawing upon his grandfather's experiences as a college athlete. Other essays are inspired by automobile culture and the interface of Indian music with popular American music. These vibrant writings are highly recommended for public, high school, and academic libraries with multicultural interests. Nathan E. Bender, Buffalo Bill Historical Ctr., Cody, WY Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
A trenchant and enlightening examination of American
Indian identity and of federal policy that has affected it.”—Montana The Magazine of Western History
“An eminently readable work. . . . Deloria tells some achingly beautiful stories of the kinds of lives his own relatives managed to carve out in the face of white expectations.”—Multicultural Review
“Highly recommended for public, high school, and academic libraries with multicultural interests.”—Library Journal
“Deloria succeeds brilliantly.”—Journal of the West
“Deloria’s endpoint is to quiz stereotypes for their impact on ideological discourse, which he accomplishes with humor, grace, and depth. Highly recommended.”—Choice
“Subtle and complex, this fascinating, well-researched book will no doubt find its way into unexpected places of honor in American cultural studies.”—Santa Fe New Mexican
“An excellent book that reveals a secret history of Indian modernity too often obscured by our powerful wish to associate Indians with the traditional, the primitive, and ‘the blanket.’”—Werner Sollors, author of Neither Black Nor White Yet Both
“Well written, funny, thoughtful and thought provoking. The chapter on athletics, framed by family history, is a particular gem.”—Brian W. Dippie, author of The Vanishing American: White Attitudes and U.S. Indian Policy
“The thematic and chronological sweep of Deloria’s brilliant new book is remarkable.”—David R. Roediger, author of The Wages of Whiteness and Colored White
“Deloria is as good a cultural historian as there is writing today. Here he takes what in lesser hands would be the ephemera of American Indian life and uses it to illuminate a whole world not apart from American society but locked in the heart of it.”—Richard White, author of It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own: A History of the American West
“A provocative, intriguing, and fascinating book that demonstrates a new sophistication in cultural studies about identity and power, continuity and change, and authenticity and artifice.”—George Lipsitz, author of American Studies in a Moment of Danger