"A thoughtful, disciplined, and useful work. . . . The issue of how to interpret North American Native cultures, in all their complexity and diversity, is one that historians, archaeologists, and other behavioral scientists have wrestled with for a long time. This volume is an interesting indicator of where that struggle currently stands."--James W. Bradley, director, Robert S. Peabody Museum, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts"A useful, interesting, and up-to-date introduction to how scholars are using material culture to better understand Native American life. Nassaney and Johnson...

In May of 1865, the United States celebrated the end of the American Civil War, but even as this nation celebrated the end of war, violence continued in the West, as it would for much of the rest of the century. Indians, pushed ever westward by the encroachment of civilization, fought back. They made war upon the settlers, the infrastructure, and the economy of the West, while men of bad character attempted to gain their own advantage. Indeed between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the century it was upon the Western frontier that the men of the U.S. Army were called to service. Over...