An entertaining and enlightening survey of what archaeology tells us about the first Americans.
An archaeologist’s tour of the history and culture of the original inhabitants of North America.
Archaeologists trace the earliest human settlement of the Americas to the late Ice Age, when a land bridge connected Alaska and Siberia. Those early migrants made their way south, leaving their stone arrow- and spearheads in the southwestern U.S. more than 20,000 years ago—often associated with the bones of mammoths or other extinct animals. People soon occupied every environmental niche of their new continent, from the Arctic tundra to the southwestern deserts, the eastern woodlands, and the Pacific coast. As anthropologist Feder shows, distinctive cultures emerged in each of the areas they inhabited, making use of local resources, whether game animals, edible plants, or mineral deposits. In-demand items that were found in limited areas—copper, for example—became the basis for trade. Not even corn, often thought of as the staple of native diet, was universally cultivated. Feder also makes it clear that any notion of Indians as “primitive” or “savage” is contradicted by the evidence of such sophisticated cultures as the Midwestern mound builders or the Pueblo dwellers of the Southwest. The author looks at how Europeans treated Indigenous peoples, from outright warfare to the eradication of their culture in “Indian schools.” He adamantly denies that Europeans “discovered” anything in the Americas—it was all well known to those already here. Feder provides copious photographs, usually his own, of art and artifacts, along with archaeological sites. Frequent personal anecdotes and popular culture references help to lighten the tone; it’s not hard to believe that his college students thoroughly enjoyed his lectures—as most readers will this fascinating book.
An entertaining and enlightening survey of what archaeology tells us about the first Americans.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2025
ISBN: 9780691220451
Page Count: 440
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.
Avuncular observations on matters historical from the late popularizer of the past.
McCullough made a fine career of storytelling his way through past events and the great men (and occasional woman) of long-ago American history. In that regard, to say nothing of his eschewing modern technology in favor of the typewriter (“I love the way the bell rings every time I swing the carriage lever”), he might be thought of as belonging to a past age himself. In this set of occasional pieces, including various speeches and genial essays on what to read and how to write, he strikes a strong tone as an old-fashioned moralist: “Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude,” he thunders. “It’s a form of ingratitude.” There are some charming reminiscences in here. One concerns cajoling his way into a meeting with Arthur Schlesinger in order to pitch a speech to presidential candidate John F. Kennedy: Where Richard Nixon “has no character and no convictions,” he opined, Kennedy “is appealing to our best instincts.” McCullough allows that it wasn’t the strongest of ideas, but Schlesinger told him to write up a speech anyway, and when it got to Kennedy, “he gave a speech in which there was one paragraph that had once sentence written by me.” Some of McCullough’s appreciations here are of writers who are not much read these days, such as Herman Wouk and Paul Horgan; a long piece concerns a president who’s been largely lost in the shuffle too, Harry Truman, whose decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan McCullough defends. At his best here, McCullough uses history as a way to orient thinking about the present, and with luck to good ends: “I am a short-range pessimist and a long-range optimist. I sincerely believe that we may be on the way to a very different and far better time.”
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781668098998
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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