Description

‘A history of resilience … sweeping, comprehensive … it’s a story that has been waiting to be told’ Guardian

‘An account sorely needed … a kaleidoscopic view of Native American history, refreshing and rollicking, and not unlike its fractured reality’ Standpoint

Blood and Land is a dazzling, panoramic account of the history and achievements of Native North Americans, and why they matter today. It is about why no understanding of the wider world is possible without comprehending the original inhabitants of the United States and Canada: Native Americans, First Nations and Arctic peoples.

This highly personal book, based on years of travel and first-hand research in North America, introduces a deeply complex story, of myriad identities and determined ethnicities – from the desert Southwest to the high Arctic, from first contact between Europeans and Native Americans to the challenges of Native leadership today. Instead of writing a chronological history, King confronts the reader with the paradoxes, diversity and successes of Native North Americans. Their astonishing ingenuity and supple intelligence enabled, after centuries of suffering both violence and dispossession, a striking level of recovery, optimism and autonomy in the twenty-first century.

Beautifully illustrated and filled with arresting and surprising stories, Blood and Land looks well beyond the ‘feathers-and-failure’ narratives beloved by historians to show us Native North America as it was and is.

Publisher Review

Resisting the tendency toward generalisation that is the inherent danger of thematic survey, King emphasises singularity, contrast and diversification ... the early sections of the chapter on language and literature contain the most lucid and succinct discussion of the nature, origin and diversification of Native American languages - a subject central to the understanding of Native American history - that I have ever read ... [an] excellent panoramic survey -- Ciaran Brady * Irish Times * Blood and Land is an account - at least from my American perspective - sorely needed...general histories of Native America are difficult to write and King does a superlative job -- David Bahr * Standpoint * Blood and Land is to be commended for its ambition. The subjects covered are fascinating ... an eminently readable work -- Karen Jones * BBC History Magazine * A panoramic portrait ...a delight for the browsers and sifters among us who may be more engaged by the stories of early 20th century Kikapoo travelling snake-oil salesmen than by the minutiae of constitutional haggling and treaty-making -- Melanie McGrath * Evening Standard * King sees through clear and intelligent eyes, with a scholarship that is deep, wide, and liberated from cliche or stereotype, the vast complexities and nuances that motivate and shape not only the past but, even more important, the present and future of the first citizens of North America. -- W. Richard West, Jr. * Founding Director, Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian *