This exceptional set of chapters explores what should be common sense—that American Indians cannot be either completely ignored or carelessly added when teaching U.S. history. Additionally, the many stories cannot be disregarded for eleven months each year only to have teachers attempting to cover all things Indigenous, from Penobscot to Pima and from the Trail of Tears to the Trail of Broken Treaties, in a single “Native American” month (November). Sleeper-Smith, Barr, O’Brien, Shoemaker, and Stevens have brought together impressive scholars from a broad range of fields to reflect on the fact that there would be no U.S. history were it not for American Indians.
The editors of this volume recognized the need to go beyond the usual retelling of U.S. history to incorporate the added dimensions that come with interdisciplinarity. All of the scholars focus on Native American and Indigenous Studies (nais) within their fields, which include...