AMERICAN EPIC: The Story of the American Indian

An excellent chronicle of the tragedies and triumphs of the North American Indians from the pre-Columbian migrations to today's Red Power, with special emphasis on the effects of European and Euro-American contacts on interrelations among the different: peoples of the New World. Packed in is a considerable amount of information about the cultural development of the various tribes under the impact of such historical milestones as the Industrial Revolution and Westward expansion, and through the painfully disruptive period of forced removal and resettlement that decimated tribes and shrank Indian country almost to the vanishing point. The final sections feature the efforts of federal agencies and individual crusaders to alleviate conditions on the reservations and the Indians' exertions on their own behalf through various intertribal coalitions and the ""powwow circuit."" The book stresses the positive side of the Indians' struggle to survive in the hope that it ""will suggest possible solutions to the problems of other conquering, conquered, and emerging nations.