Axtell – författare

Using the human life cycle as an organizational framework, Axtell has gathered a broad range of 17th and 18th century European documentation on Native North Americans. With its lucid introductions to each entry, suggestions for further reading, and bibliography, this sourcebook is invaluable for courses in history, anthropology, and native American and women's studies.

Colonial North America was not only a battleground for furs and land, but also for allegiances and even souls. In the three-sided struggle for empire, the English and French colonists were locked in heated competition for native allies and religious converts. Axtell sharply contrasts the English efforts to "civilize" the Indians with the French willingness to accept native lifestyles, and reveals why the struggle for control over the continent became a fascinating contest of cultures between shrewd opponents lasting nearly 150 years.

This is the third collection of essays by James Axtell, probably the most important ethnohistorian (dealing with American Indians and their relationship to white America) who is writing today. The new volume covers a wide range of topics dealing with American history, mainly in the 16th and 17th centuries. Axtell is concerned not only with the situation of American Indians, both before and after European colonization, but as well with the effect Indians had on the white immigrants and how the latter reacted. The 11 essay topics for the new volume are History as Imagination; First Encounters in North America; The Exploration of Norumbega; Native Reactions to the Invasion of America; The First Consumer Revolution; Jesuits in the Post-Columbian World; Humor in Ethnohistory; Europeans, Indians, and the Age of Discovery in American History Textbooks; The Columbian Mosaic in Colonial History; Moral Reflections on the Columbian Legacy; Beyond 1992. Much of the book focuses on the 500th anniversary of Columbus's discovery of America, which will be observed in October 1992, with reflections on many aspects and ramifications of this event. The book will be published simultaneously with the observances in 1992.