Images from the Region of the Pueblo Indians of North America


Aby Warburg - 1923
    This edition includes thirty-nine photographs, many of them originally presented as slides with the speech, and a rich interpretive essay by the translator.

The Journal of Jesse Smoke: A Cherokee Boy, Trail of Tears, 1838


Joseph Bruchac - 2001
    This powerful fictionalized journal retraces one young Native American boy's trek down that lonesome way.

Visions for Black Men


Na'im Akbar - 1991
    How do we restore African manhood to those whom our society has not viewed as the chosen people? Discover the startling prediction of the mystical tradition of ancient Africa.

Man's Rise to Civilization: The Cultural Ascent of the Indians of North America


Peter Farb - 1968
    Today this work continues to stand as one of the major summaries of the indigenous societies of North America with its explication of such universal subjects as monotheism, war, capitalism, and sex.

The Gilded Age


Milton Rugoff - 2018
    Treasury. And Alva Vanderbilt squandered tens of thousands on one evening to crack the closed social circle of the Mrs. Astor. And when Jay Gould, of Black Friday fame, sent his card to one of the Rothschilds, it was returned with the comment, "Europe is not for sale." It was this climate of mid- and late-nineteenth-century excess that fostered the most rapid period of growth in the history of the United States, replacing the unyielding Puritanism of Cotton Mather with the flexible creed of Henry Ward Beecher. National Book Award nominee Milton Rugoff gives his uniquely revealing view of the Gilded Age in this collective biography of Americans from 1850 to 1890. Writing on the political spoilsmen, money kings, parvenus, forty-niners, lords of the press, sexual transgressors, and women's rights leaders, Rugoff focuses on thirty-six men and women from almost every walk of life. His exponents include U.S. Grant, John Charles Frémont, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jim Fisk, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Horatio Alger, free-love advocate Victoria Woodhull, first female surgeon Bethenia Owens-Adair, Brigham Young's rebellious nineteenth wife Anna Eliza Young, Boston Brahmin Charles Eliot Norton, Gold Rush pioneer Sarah Royce, black visionary Sojourner Truth, and to critique American society, Walt Whitman. In examining the Gilded Age, Milton Rugoff offers fresh glimpses into the lives of the celebrities of the era, as well as some lesser-known Americans, while at the same time revealing the roots of problems that still plague us today.

Native American Son: The Life and Sporting Legend of Jim Thorpe


Kate Buford - 2010
    We also see the infamous loss of his Olympic medals, stripped from him because he had previously played professional baseball, an event that would haunt Thorpe for the rest of his life. We see his struggles with alcoholism and personal misfortune, losing his first child and moving from one failed marriage to the next, coming to distrust many of the hands extended to him. Finally, we learn the details of his vigorous advocacy for Native American rights while he chased a Hollywood career, and the truth behind the supposed reinstatement of his Olympic record in 1982. Here is the story—long overdue and brilliantly told—of a complex, iconoclastic, profoundly talented man whose life encompassed both tragic limitations and truly extraordinary achievements.

The Nine Nations of North America


Joel Garreau - 1981
    It is Nine Nations. Each has its capital and its distinctive web of power and influence. Some are still close to being raw frontiers; others have four centuries of history. Each has a peculiar economy; each commands an emotional allegiance from its citizens. Some are made topographically distinct by mountains, deserts, rivers. Others are defined by attitudes, ways of making a living, music, and language. Few are contained by lines that now describe "Canada," "Mexico," "the United States." Each of these Nine Nations has its own desires. Most important, each nation has a distinct prism through which it views the rest of the world.

The Popol Vuh


Anonymous
    Then come the twin heroes Hunahpu and Xbalanque. Wielding blowguns, they begin a journey to hell and back, ready to confront the folly of false deities as well as death itself, in service to the world and to humanity.This is the story of the Mayan Popol Vuh, "the book of the woven mat," one of the only epics indigenous to the Americas. Originally sung and chanted, before being translated into prose--and now, for the first time, translated back into verse by Michael Bazzett--this is a story of the generative power of language. A story that asks not only Where did you come from? but How might you live again? A story that, for the first time in English, lives fully as "the phonetic rendering of a living pulse."

Trail of Feathers: In Search of the Birdmen of Peru


Tahir Shah - 2001
    Fascinated by the recurring theme of flight in Peruvian folklore, Shah sets out to discover whether the Incas really were able to "fly like birds" over the jungle, as a Spanish monk reported. Or was their soaring drug-induced? His journey, full of surreal experiences, takes him from the Andes mountains to the desert and finally, in the company of a Vietnam vet, up the Amazon deep into the jungle to discover the secrets of the Shuar, a tribe of legendary savagery.- Travel writing at its best, at once colorful, informative, and amusing. Doris Lessing said that Shah has a "genius for surreal traveling."- The cast of characters includes madmen and dreames, sorcerers and con men, headhunters and scholars--in short, the usual assortment for Shah.- Features an appendix on flora-based hallucinogens of Amazonia, including ayahuasca, "the vine of the dead."- Hardcover ISBN: 1-55970-613-9

“All the Real Indians Died Off”: And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans


Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz - 2016
    Tracing how these ideas evolved, and drawing from history, the authors disrupt long-held and enduring myths such as:"Columbus Discovered America""Thanksgiving Proves the Indians Welcomed Pilgrims""Indians Were Savage and Warlike""Europeans Brought Civilization to Backward Indians""The United States Did Not Have a Policy of Genocide""Sports Mascots Honor Native Americans""Most Indians Are on Government Welfare""Indian Casinos Make Them All Rich""Indians Are Naturally Predisposed to Alcohol"Each chapter deftly shows how these myths are rooted in the fears and prejudice of European settlers and in the larger political agendas of a settler state aimed at acquiring Indigenous land and tied to narratives of erasure and disappearance. Accessibly written and revelatory, "All the Real Indians Died Off" challenges readers to rethink what they have been taught about Native Americans and history.

Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America


Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
    This remarkable book is his odyssey, first written in 1542 as an official report to the king of Spain under the title La Relacion.

March of the Titans: A History of the White Race


Arthur Kemp - 2006
    

The Shipping Forecast: A Miscellany


Nic Compton - 2016
    It has inspired songs, poetry and imaginations across the globe – as well as providing a very real service for the nation’s seafarers who might fall prey to storms and gales. In 1995, a plan to move the late-night broadcast by just 12 minutes caused a national outcry and was ultimately scrapped.Published with Radio 4 and the Met Office, The Shipping Forecast is the official miscellany for seafarers and armchair travellers alike. From the places themselves – how they got their names, what’s happened there through the ages – to the poems and parodies that it’s inspired, this is a beautifully evocative tribute to one of Britain's – and Radio 4's – best-loved broadcasts.

Scattered Leaves: The Legend of Ghostkiller


Lynny Prince - 2008
    More than a century later, Kyle Ghostkiller is given the chance to go back and save them.Kyle has just returned to his hometown to accept a medicine bundle that gives him the power to time travel and reverse a curse on an old government document. But when four teenagers are found brutally murdered, newcomer Kyle becomes a prime suspect. With the FBI hot on his trail, and a jilted childhood sweetheart learning to love him all over again, Kyle escapes into the past where he must confront dark forces to save the "38" or risk losing them to the hangman's noose forever. It's a fierce battle between good and evil that Kyle must win. Only the sacred ceremonies of his ancestors and Kyle's sheer determination can save the "38", but can he successfully change history for the Great Sioux Nation?

Unspeakable Truths: Facing the Challenge of Truth Commissions


Priscilla B. Hayner - 2002
    Hayner examines twenty major truth commissions established around the world paying special attention to South Africa, El Salvador, Argentina, Chile, and Guatemala.