When Europeans first arrived in North America, between five and
eight million indigenous people were already living there. But how
did they come to be here? What were their agricultural, spiritual,
and hunting practices? How did their societies evolve and what
challenges do they face today?
Eminent historians Theda Perdue and Michael Green begin by
describing how nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers followed the bison
and woolly mammoth over the Bering land mass between Asia and what
is now Alaska between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago, settling
throughout North America. They describe hunting practices among
different tribes, how some made the gradual transition to more
settled, agricultural ways of life, the role of kinship and
cooperation in Native societies, their varied burial rites and
spiritual practices, and many other features of Native American
life. Throughout the book, Perdue and Green stress the great
diversity of indigenous peoples in America, who spoke more than 400
different languages before the arrival of Europeans and whose ways
of life varied according to the environments they settled in and
adapted to so successfully. Most importantly, the authors stress
how Native Americans have struggled to maintain their
sovereignty--first with European powers and then with the United
States--in order to retain their lands, govern themselves, support
their people, and pursue practices that have made their lives
meaningful.
Going beyond the stereotypes that so often distort our views of
Native Americans, this Very Short Introduction offers a
historically accurate, deeply engaging, and often inspiring account
of the wide array of Native peoples in America.
About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and
style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of
life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the
newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about
the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from
philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
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