Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America

Rating:
Summary: The Echo of Native American Voices
Review: Behind the documents and the interpretations of Native American history, the Native voice yearns to be heard. It is unfortunate that no body of literature will be able to provide the "true" voice of how Natives actually reacted to the so-called "invasion" or "conquest" North America by Europeans during the early part of 16th century. However, Daniel Richter's FACING EAST FROM INDIAN COUNTRY: A NATIVE HISTORY OF EARLY AMERICA attempts to switch the lens from a European perspective to a Native American one.

The book's cover shows an amazing picture of the American landscape that is all too familiar to historians and literati with its depiction of the romanticized Indian. Here we have a glorious painting that does not truly depict the world in which Indians had lived in. Yes, it is a big wide world that has not yet been tainted by colonists,settlers and traders alike. However, it was their world that had been considered the New World.

Richter does a good job at introducing his argument that Natives are at the foreground of American history. That is, if one looked East along the Eastern seaboard. This account adds a dimension to "master narrative," which now included Native inhabitants to be heard behind European accounts.

FACING EAST FROM INDIAN COUNTRY may be a good starting point for those who would like to understand American history and its intricacies that involved Native Americans. This may not be the quintessential narrative, but it is one that is not difficult to understand nor is it complex. It is a visual perspective that may lead to complex inquiry as an after thought because the book ends where the story of Native Americans further continues, but with one drastic event after another.

Rating:
Summary: A Reader
Review: Facing East From Indian Country is a scholarly survey of American Indian history up to the early 19th century and will appeal to college-level students of Native American history and culture. The tone of this history differs from most in keeping Native experience and perspectives in the forefront of the story: the result is a better understanding of Native perceptions and events in early America.

Rating:
Summary: Great Thesis, Muddled Execution
Review: I was very excited to read Facing East From Indian Country, having read literally dozens of history titles on the conquest of the New World from the European perspective for school and work. However, I was slightly disappointed with Mr. Richter's writing style, and felt that as an author he did not "digest" his great thesis quite enough. There were too many times that I found myself really trying hard to "get into" particular chapters, and I thought that I was really working too hard to get through this title.

That is not to say that this book is poor by any means. It is a far more academic title than I expected. For help with research it is excellent and offers up a great variety of very rare Native American source documents. But for simple reading pleasure it is a bit too scholarly.

The reader's enjoyment of Facing East From Indian Country will depend on whether the customer is purchasing this book for academic work/research or just for casual reading. For the student/historian, it is a fresh take on the history of North America. For the history buff, it is probably a bit too complex. I am both a history buff and a professional historian, and couldn't help be a bit disappointed, especially after looking forward to reading Mr. Richter's book for some time.
Hopefully he will publish more work in the future with the same type of freshness and perspective, and make it more digestable.

Rating:
Summary: Great Thesis, Muddled Execution
Review: Since the Native Americans themselves have not left behind a body of written documentation describing their thoughts on the earliest episodes of European immigration, it is up to the author to speculate intelligently... based on the archeological evidence, the known actions of the peoples involved, and his own imagination. Vast in scope, but generously informative of individual events and particular people, the author has succeeded in creating a scholarly work that transcends the usual. Keen insights, and a clear, graceful writing style makes this kind of historical reading extremely satisfying.

Rating:
Summary: A Pleasure To Read
Review: Since the Native Americans themselves have not left behind a body of written documentation describing their thoughts on the earliest episodes of European immigration, it is up to the author to speculate intelligently... based on the archeological evidence, the known actions of the peoples involved, and his own imagination. Vast in scope, but generously informative of individual events and particular people, the author has succeeded in creating a scholarly work that transcends the usual. Keen insights, and a clear, graceful writing style makes this kind of historical reading extremely satisfying.

Rating:
Summary: A different view
Review: This book is by no means the first, nor the most comprehensive analysis of early American history with a Native American perspective. The writing style is straightforward and matter-of-fact and not as dramatic or emotional as the tale as told in BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE. Nevertheless this book is evocative of Dee Brown's book largely because of the same emphasis on Native Americans. Also because it too uses Native American history and traditions as the framework in which to look at North America, from discovery through to the 17th century.

One of the things that happens when FACING EAST FROM INDIAN COUNTRY is that you get a different picture of time and events. Traditionally the story of early America is a westward moving one, and one which quickly becomes a story about Europeans and an emerging people called American's.

One of the most profound impressions this book will leave with you is a view of the East Coast of North America as dominantly Indian country for more than a hundred years after initial settlement. Even more startling is Richter's well reasoned argument that Eastern North America only ceased to be Indian country when following 1776, the now fully emergent American's "denied the continent's first peoples a place in the nation they were creating."

Rating:
Summary: A Reader
Review: Wow!! What a book. Focusing on the Eastern Colonization of America, Daniel Richter provides an extremely powerful and even handed view on Native American - European interaction between the years 1620 and 1812. I loved this book. You will to.