Booklist Review

Concise, amply researched, well wrought, and vigorous, this intelligent and beautiful general survey of the many nations of Native America is worth much more than its modest price. What will draw readers most is the magnificent collection of photographs of Native Americans in traditional costume, which amounts to an intertribal powwow for the coffee table. These exquisite portraits, interspersed with photos of splendid artwork, suffer somewhat, though, from being identified by the captions only as, for example, "two Ojibwa dancers" or "this Blackfoot man" --a practice that confers a peculiar anonymity that jars with the book's attempt to remind readers that "Indians" weren't all the same across the continent. Nonetheless, a feast for the eyes and mind. --Patricia Monaghan