Anti-Indianism in Modern America: A Voice from Tatekeya´s Earth
Elizabeth Cook-Lynn
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 the West's past glories or accepting the widespread historians' view of it as a shared place, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn argues that the American West should be fundamentally understood as stolen.
Cook-Lynn says that the Indian Wars of Resistance to the nineteenth- and twentieth-century colonial effort to seize native lands and resources must be given standing in the face of the ever-growing imperial narrative of America--because the terror the world is now witnessing may be the direct consequence of events which began in America's earliest dealings with the natives of this continent. Cook-Lynn's story examines the ongoing and perennial relationship of conflict between colonizers and indigenous people, and it is a story that every American must read.
Cook-Lynn understands that the story of the American West teaches 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.
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About Elizabeth Cook-Lynn
Reviews for Anti-Indianism in Modern America: A Voice from Tatekeya´s Earth
Vine Deloria Jr., Pacific Historical Quarterly "Reflects on the themes of nationalism, anti-Indianism, and genocide denial through a number of rhetorical forms: essays, speeches, letters, and a collection of diary entries. . . . [Cook-Lynn's] emphasis on issues of nationhood, and the land attached to it, distinguishes her writings. . . . Anyone interested in public memory, nationalism, land rights, or social justice would be interested in this book."
Catherine Helen Palczewski, Rhetoric and Public Affairs "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 "Elizabeth Cook-Lynn is one of the founding scholars of Native American Studies, and with New Indians, Old Wars she remains one of its most important voices. To use her own language, she keeps our collective plot moving."
Jace Weaver, director, Institute of Native American Studies, University of Georgia