Ecological Indian: Myth And History"A good story and first-rate social science."—New York Times Book Review The idea of the Native American living in perfect harmony with nature is one of the most cherished contemporary myths. But how truthful is this larger-than-life image? According to anthropologist Shepard Krech, the first humans in North America demonstrated all of the intelligence, self-interest, flexibility, and ability to make mistakes of human beings anywhere. As Nicholas Lemann put it in The New Yorker, "Krech is more than just a conventional-wisdom overturner; he has a serious larger point to make. . . . Concepts like ecology, waste, preservation, and even the natural (as distinct from human) world are entirely anachronistic when applied to Indians in the days before the European settlement of North America." "Offers a more complex portrait of Native American peoples, one that rejects mythologies, even those that both European and Native Americans might wish to embrace."—Washington Post |
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Aboriginal Agricultural Akimel O'odham Alberta Algonquian American Antiquity animals Anthropology Archaeology Arizona Audubon beavers Beringia Bison Blackfeet Cahokia Canadian canals caribou century Change Cherokee Choctaw communities conservation Cree Cultural David decades deerskin trade deerskins Demography Desert disease Doyel Ecological Indian ecologists Ecosystems environment Environmental epidemics especially estimates Europeans Family Hunting fire Fish floods forest Fur Trade Gila Got'ine grasslands Gwich'in habitats Haury herds History Hohokam human hundred hunters hunting territories ibid impact Indians burned indigenous influenza James Bay John Journal killed land late lived Martin meat million Mississippi Montagnais Native American natural nineteenth North America North American Indians Northern Algonquians Northern Ojibwa numbers Ojibwa Paleoindians passim pelts Plains Indians Pleistocene Pleistocene Extinctions population Prehistoric Irrigation region remarked Salt River Valley Science skins smallpox Snaketown Sonoran Desert South Southwest Southwestern Subsistence Systems Toronto trapping Tribes University Press Volume Washington waste West Western white-tailed deer Wildlife William World York