The Complete Idiot's Guide to Native American History (Complete Idiot's Guide to)

Rating:
Summary: What a waste of money (depending on what you want)
Review: If you're looking to learn anything about the tribes and traditions of native americans, find yourself another book. You won't find anything useful, fun, or informative here.

If, on the other hand, you want a play by play of everything crappy that has happened to native americans since white people set eyes on them, you'll love this book. If that was its purpose, it's a great book but to me it seemed like a whole lot of whining disguised as an introduction to the culture and history of native americans. It's a lot like a teacher or professor giving a political rant instead of, say, teaching the subject you came to learn.

If you're old enough to read and haven't already learned how horrible white people have been to native americans, you're a complete idiot and reading this book won't help you.

Rating:
Summary: Whining? Hardly.
Review: This book is as complete as any single volume can be in spanning Native American History. It covers terminology, law, and culture as well as an account of the United States government's treatment of Native Peoples.

And it does so without belaboring the obvious, that killing people and stealing their land is wrong. In fact, the author was restrained and in no single spot that I can recall did he resort to outright moralizing. Instead, he remained fairly neutral, making the topic approachable.

I would reccomend this book to any literate person.