Description
Addressing Native American Studies' past, present, and future, the essays in New Indians, Old Wars tackle the discipline head-on, presenting a radical revision of the popular view of the American West in the process. Instead of luxuriating in its past glories or accepting the widespread historians' view of the West as a shared place, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn argues that it should be fundamentally understood as stolen.
Firmly grounded in the reality of a painful past, Cook-Lynn understands the story of the American West as teaching the political language of land theft and tyranny. She argues that to remedy this situation, Native American studies must be considered and pursued as its own discipline, rather than as a subset of history or anthropology. She makes an impassioned claim that such a shift, not merely an institutional or theoretical change, could allow Native American studies to play an important role in defending the sovereignty of indigenous nations today.
Challenging received American history and forging a new path for Native American studies
About the Author
Elizabeth Cook-Lynn (1930-2023) was a member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe and a writer, poet, and professor emerita of Native American studies at Eastern Washington University. She was the author of many books, including Aurelia: A Crow Creek Trilogy and Anti-Indianism in Modern America, and the coauthor of The Politics of Hallowed Ground: Wounded Knee and the Struggle for Indian Sovereignty.
Reviews
"New Indians, Old Wars is an important addition to the growing works committed to Indigenousness and tribal sovereignties, many of them authored by Native scholars, which Native students - in fact, all students - must read."--Wicazo Sa Review
"Cook-Lynn's is an important voice in Indian studies, and this book contains excellent insights into the ways in which this discipline is structured and can move forward. . . . Recommended."--Choice
"This passionately argued polemic. . . . [is] recommended for academic libraries supporting programs in Native American studies or U.S. history."--Library Journal
"Its careful, though radical, argument is thought-provoking."--True West
"In fiercely arguing for a tribal model of Indian studies based on sovereignty and indigenousness, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn brilliantly tells the story of the brutal U.S. colonization of Indian nations as well as its covering up of that history. This new work is as bold as the hard blue sky of Cook-Lynn's homeland in the northern Plains. It is destined to become a classic of indigenous literature."--Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie
Book Information
ISBN 9780252031663
Author Elizabeth Cook-Lynn
Format Hardback
Page Count 248
Imprint University of Illinois Press
Publisher University of Illinois Press
Weight(grams) 513g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 20mm
