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This collection of essays--including four previously unpublshed--by one of our leading ethnohistorians examines a wide range of important and fascinating topics and will serve as an invaluable reader for students of ethnohistory and Native American history.
An essential history of the modern research university When universities began in the Middle Ages, Pope Gregory IX described them as "wisdom's special workshop." He could not have foreseen how far these institutions would travel and develop. Tracing the eight-hundred-year evolution of the elite research university from its roots in medieval Europe to its remarkable incarnation today, Wisdom's Workshop places this durable institution in sweeping historical perspective. In particular, James Axtell focuses on the ways that the best American universities took on Continental influences, developing into the finest expressions of the modern university and enviable models for kindred institutions wo...
Natives and Newcomers describes the major encounters between Indians and Europeans -- first contacts, communications, epidemics, trade and gift-giving, social and sexual mingling, work, conversions, military clashes -- and probes the short- and long-term consequences for both cultures. The end result is an accessible and often witty book which shows how encounters between Indians and Europeans ultimately shaped a distinctly American identity.
In this provocative and timely collection of essays--five published for the first time--one of the most important ethnohistorians writing today, James Axtell, explores the key role of imagination both in our perception of strangers and in the writing of history. Coinciding with the 500th anniversary of Columbus's "discovery" of America, this collection covers a wide range of topics dealing with American history. Three essays view the invasion of North America from the perspective of the Indians, whose land it was. The very first meetings, he finds, were nearly always peaceful. Other essays describe native encounters with colonial traders--creating "the first consumer revolution"--and Jesuit ...
Colonial North America was not only a battleground for furs and land, but for allegiances as well. While the colonial French and English were locked in heated competition for the most native allies, the Indians sought to preserve their own independence, alighning themselves only when necessary with the colonial group that offered the best material and spiritual wares. Here, ethnohistorian James Axtell takes a fresh look at this contest of cultures to reveal why and how the French and Indians were able to rise so effectively to the challenge posed by English imperial design. Although the English offered better trade goods, they were ultimately defeated by their own stubborn need to impose the...
Important Events in Native American History
"The book is a lively warts-and-all rendering of Princeton's rise, addressing such themes as discriminatory admission policies, the academic underperformance of many varsity athletes, and the controversial "bicker" system through which students have been selected for the University's private eating clubs."--BOOK JACKET.
In this concise but sweeping study, James Axtell depicts the complete range of transformations in southeastern Indian cultures as a result of contact, and often conflict, with European explorers and settlers in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Stressing the dynamism and constant change in native cultures while showing no loss of Indian identity, Axtell effectively argues that the colonial Southeast cannot be fully understood without paying particular attention to its native inhabitants before their large-scale removal in the 1830s. Axtell begins by treating the irruption in native life of several Spanish entradas in the sixteenth century, most notably and destructively H...
This fascinating collection of primary source materials provides a unique introduction to the woodland Indians who inhabited Northeastern America in the region bordered by the Carolinas, the Great Lakes, and the maritime provinces of Canada. Substantial portions of the sixty-seven original documents included - written primarily by French and English settlers, explorers, missionaries, and Indian women - reveal the feelings and prejudices of their authors, thus allowing the reader an intriguing look into the lives of both the native Americans and the foreigners who supplanted them. Frequent contacts between these farming tribes and the early immigrants played a large part in shaping the fabric of life in colonial America. -- from back cover.