Selling the Indian: Commercializing and Appropriating American Indian Cultures

Rating:
Summary: From "white shamanism" to Cherokee basketry
Review: Collaboratively edited by Carter Jones Meyer (Associate Professor of History and Convener of the American Studies Program, Ramapo College, New Jersey) and Diana Royer (Associate Professor of English, Miami University), Selling The Indian: Commercializing & Appropriating American Indian Cultures is a scholarly, serious anthology of contributors surveying over a hundred years of attempts and practices using Native American culture for commercial profit, in eight original essays that range in topic from "white shamanism" to Cherokee basketry and tourist economies. A unique, informative, insightful, and very welcome contribution to Native American Studies, Selling The Indian showcases and documents commercialization as a form of cultural imperialism and a danger to American Indian culture to identity is discussed and analyzed in this careful and thought-provoking treatise.