The Harrowing of Eden: White Attitudes toward Native Americans

New York, NY: Seabury Press, 1975. Hardcover. Fine/Very Good. A Continuum Book, by Seabury Press. The book is Fine, whistle-clean inside and out, probably unread. Dust Jacket is price intact ($8.95) and in very good condition with only slight edge wear at top of spine and a tiny bit at top edges near corner. Close to fine. from inside flap of dj -- "Separation, assimilation, termination, extermination... these have been some of the catchwords used to describe white policies toward the American Indian. Behind the postures which have accompanied these attitudes, writes J. E. Chamberlin, there is surprising consistency, which spans several centuries, in both Canada and the United Sates. Relations, as he shows in this book, have shifted uneasily between various extremes. Although the fundamental characteristic of the situation has always been the fact that almost everything that mattered to either race was incomprehensible to the other, it is also true that the central focus of mutual uneasiness has always been land --- land which in more ways than one, was "discovered" (or invented) by the white man. It has functioned as a commodity, a political instrument, a national prerogative; the natives have been confined to it, defined by it, and measured by their use of it.Finally it has become a symbol of all that has been lost by all of us, of a time and place of innocence to which we can never return.