Book Review: History's Shadow: Native Americans and Historical Consciousness in the Nineteenth Century

Authors

Jeffrey Ostler, University of Oregon

Date of this Version

2006

Comments

Published in GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY 26:3 (Summer 2006). Copyright © 2006 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Abstract

In this polished work of intellectual history, Steven Conn charts a series of trajectories in European American approaches to conceiving of Native Americans during the nineteenth century. He does this through four interior chapters on images of Indians in American art, the study of Indian languages, archaeology, and the emergence of anthropology. These are framed by two chapters that introduce and amplify the book's general theme of "Native Americans and the problem of history."