Blood and Land: The Story of Native North America

by J.C.H. King

This highly personal book, based on years of travel and first-hand research in North America, introduces a deeply complex story, of myriad identities and determined ethnicities—from the desert Southwest to the high Arctic, from first contact between Europeans and Native Americans to the challenges of Native leadership today. Instead of writing a chronological history, King confronts the reader with the paradoxes, diversity and successes of Native North Americans. Their astonishing ingenuity and supple intelligence enabled, after centuries of suffering both violence and dispossession, a striking level of recovery, optimism and autonomy in the 21st 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.