The Cambridge History Of Native American Literature Volume 1

Native American literature has always been uniquely embattled. It is marked by divergent opinions about what constitutes authenticity, sovereignty, and even literature. It announces a culture beset by paradox: simultaneously primordial and postmodern; oral and inscribed; outmoded and novel. Its texts are a site of political struggle, shifting to meet external and internal expectations. This Cambridge History endeavors to capture and question the contested character of Indigenous texts and the way they are evaluated. It delineates significant periods of literary and cultural development in four sections: “Traces & Removals” (pre-1870s); “Assimilation and Modernity” (1879-1967); “Native American Renaissance” (post-1960s); and “Visions & Revisions” (21st century). These rubrics highlight how Native literatures have evolved alongside major transitions in federal policy toward the Indian, and via contact with broader cultural phenomena such, as the American Civil Rights movement. There is a balance between a history of canonical authors and traditions, introducing less-studied works and themes, and foregrounding critical discussions, approaches, and controversies.

An informative and wide-ranging overview of Native American literature from the 1770s to present day.

"Native American literature has always been uniquely embattled. It is marked by particularly divergent opinions about what constitutes authenticity, sovereignty, and even literature. It announces a culture beset by paradox: simultaneously primordial and postmodern; oral and inscribed; outmoded and novel; quixotic and quotidian. Above all, its texts are a site of political struggle, shifting to meet expectations both external and internal. This Cambridge History endeavors to capture and question the contested character of both Indigenous texts and the way they are evaluated. This book has a chronological structure. It delineates significant periods of literary and cultural development in four sections: "Traces & Removals" (pre-1870s); "Assimilation and Modernity" (1879-1967); "Native American Renaissance" (post-1960s); and "Visions & Revisions" (21st century). These rubrics highlight the various ways Native literatures have evolved alongside major transitions in federal policy toward the Indian, and via contact with broader cultural phenomena such as the American Civil Rights movement. There is a balance between a History of canonical authors and traditions, introducing less-studied works and themes, and foregrounding critical discussions, approaches, and controversies"--

This book provides the first comprehensive history of the Native Peoples of North America from their arrival in the western hemisphere to the present. It describes how Native Peoples have dealt with the environmental diversity of North America and have responded to the different European colonial regimes and national governments that have established themselves in recent centuries. It also examines the development of a pan-Indian identity since the nineteenth century and provides a comparison not found in other histories of how Native Peoples have fared in Canada and the United States.

Volume I of The Cambridge History of American Literature was originally published in 1997, and covers the colonial and early national periods and discusses the work of a diverse assemblage of authors, from Renaissance explorers and Puritan theocrats to Revolutionary pamphleteers and poets and novelists of the new republic. Addressing those characteristics that render the texts distinctively American while placing the literature in an international perspective, the contributors offer a compelling new evaluation of both the literary importance of early American history and the historical value of early American literature.

Library holds volume 2, part 2 only.

Publisher description: The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, Volume II: Mesoamerica (Part One), gives a comprehensive and authoritative overview of all the important native civilizations of the Mesoamerican area, beginning with archaeological discussions of paleoindian, archaic and preclassic societies and continuing to the present. Fully illustrated and engagingly written, the book is divided into sections that discuss the native cultures of Mesoamerica before and after their first contact with the Europeans. The various chapters balance theoretical points of view as they trace the cultural history and evolutionary development of such groups as the Olmec, the Maya, the Aztec, the Zapotec, and the Tarascan. The chapters covering the prehistory of Mesoamerica offer explanations for the rise and fall of the Classic Maya, the Olmec, and the Aztec, giving multiple interpretations of debated topics, such as the nature of Olmec culture. Through specific discussions of the native peoples of the different regions of Mexico, the chapters on the period since the arrival of the Europeans address the themes of contact, exchange, transfer, survivals, continuities, resistance, and the emergence of modern nationalism and the nation-state.

This is an authoritative large-scale history of the whole of Latin America, from the first contacts between native American peoples and Europeans in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries to the present day.