In 1959, the Supreme Court ushered in a new era of Indian law, which recognizes Indian tribes as permanent governments within the federal constitutional system and, on the whole, honors old promises to the Indians. Drawing together historical sources such as the records of treaty negotiations with the Indians, classic political theory on the nature of sovereignty, and anthropological studies of societal change, Wilkinson evaluates the Court's work in Indian law over the past twenty-five years and considers the effects of time on law.

In Crossing the Next Meridian, Charles F. Wilkinson, an expert on federal public lands, Native American issues, and the West's arcane water laws explains some of the core problems facing the American West now and in the years to come. He examines the outmoded ideas that pervade land use and resource allocation and argues that significant reform of Western law is needed to combat desertification and environmental decline, and to heal splintered communities. Interweaving legal history with examples of present-day consequences of the laws, both intended and unintended, Wilkinson traces the...

How do Native Americans maintain their identity and culture in a hostile society, and to what end? Tonto's Revenge is a passionate attempt by a leading Native American scholar to reassess the Indian world view and its importance to all Americans. His deeply felt essays project a vision of how Native Americans can recapture the power of their cultural legacies. "What we have witnessed over the last five hundred years," states Rennard Strickland, "is the domination of an ideologically superior world view (that of the Native Americans) by a technologically advanced but spiritually bankrupt...