Blood and Land

'A history of resilience ... sweeping, comprehensive ... it's a story that has been waiting to be told' Guardian

'Anaccount sorely needed ... a kaleidoscopic view of Native Americanhistory, refreshing and rollicking, and not unlike its fracturedreality' Standpoint

Blood and Land is a dazzling, panoramic account of the historyand achievements of Native North Americans, and why they matter today.It is about why no understanding of the wider world is possible withoutcomprehending the original inhabitants of the United States and Canada:Native Americans, First Nations and Arctic peoples.

This highlypersonal book, based on years of travel and first-hand research in NorthAmerica, introduces a deeply complex story, of myriad identities anddetermined ethnicities - from the desert Southwest to the high Arctic,from first contact between Europeans and Native Americans to thechallenges of Native leadership today. Instead of writing achronological history, King confronts the reader with the paradoxes,diversity and successes of Native North Americans. Their astonishingingenuity and supple intelligence enabled, after centuries of sufferingboth violence and dispossession, a striking level of recovery, optimismand autonomy in the twenty-first century.

Beautifully illustrated and filled with arresting and surprising stories, Blood and Land looks well beyond the 'feathers-and-failure' narratives beloved by historians to show us Native North America as it was and is.

Reviews

King sees through clear and intelligent eyes, with a scholarship that is deep, wide, and liberated from cliché or stereotype, the vast complexities and nuances that motivate and shape not only the past but, even more important, the present and future of the first citizens of North America.