Native Roots: How the Indians Enriched America

(Paperback)

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Gracefully written . . . thoroughly researched . . . America is a banquet prepared by the Indianswho were forgotten when it was time to give thanks at the table.St. Paul Pioneer-Express

Well written, imagery-ridden . . . A tale of what was, what became, and what is today regarding the Indian relation to the European civilization that grafted itself onto this ancient stemMinneapolis Star Tribune

In Indian Givers, anthropologist Jack Weatherford revealed how the cultural, social, and political practices of the American Indians transformed the world. In Native Roots, Weatherford focuses on the vital role Indian civilizations have played in the making of the United States.

Conventional American history holds that the white settlers of the New World re-created the societies they had known in England, France, and Spain. But, as Weatherford so brilliantly shows, Europeans in fact grafted their civilizations onto the deep and nourishing roots of Native American customs and beliefs. Beneath the glass-and-steel skyscrapers of contemporary Manhattan lies an Indian fur-trading post. Behind the tactics of modern guerrilla warfare are the lightning-fast maneuvers of the Plains Indians. Our place names, our farming and hunting techniques, our crafts, and the very blood that flows in our veinsall derive from American Indians in ways that we consistently fail to see. In Weatherfords words, Without understanding Native Americans, we will never know who we are today in America.

Author Bio

Jack Weatherfordis theNew York Timesbestselling author ofGenghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World,Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World,The Secret History of the Mongol Queens,andThe History of Money, among other acclaimed books. A specialist in tribal peoples, he was for many years a professor of anthropology at Macalester College in Minnesota and now divides his time between the United States and Mongolia.