This volume covers themes in Native American history from the late 1800s to the present. While generally chronological, the articles are arranged around themes of reservation culture, gender, culture change, religion, Indian renewal and Indian activism, and cultural resurgence. It includes among others, articles on the Plains Wars, Ghost Dance, the reservation system, shamanism, Navajo Changing Woman, tourism and more.

The English explorer Henry Hudson devoted his life to the search for a water route through America, becoming the first European to navigate the Hudson River in the process. In Fatal Journey , acclaimed historian and biographer Peter C. Mancall narrates Hudson's final expedition. In the winter of 1610, after navigating dangerous fields of icebergs near the northern tip of Labrador, Hudson's small ship became trapped in winter ice. Provisions grew scarce and tensions mounted amongst the crew. Within months, the men mutinied, forcing Hudson, his teenage son, and seven other men into a skiff, which they left floating in the Hudson Bay. A story of exploration, desperation, and icebound tragedy, Fatal Journey vividly chronicles the undoing of the great explorer, not by an angry ocean, but at the hands of his own men.