Killing the White Man's Indian: Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century
In the face of a new lightly romanticized view of Native  Americans,Killing the White Man's Indianbravely confronts the  current myths and often contradictory realities of tribal life today.  Following two centuries of broken treaties and virtual government  extermination of the "savage redmen," Americans today have recast  Native Americans into another, equally stereotyped role, that of  eternal victims, politically powerless and weakened by poverty and  alcoholism, yet whose spiritual ties with the natural world form our  last, best hope of salvaging our natural environment and ennobling our  souls.The truth, however, is neither as grim , nor as blindly  idealistic, as many would expect. The fact is that a virtual revolution  is underway in Indian Country, an upheaval of epic proportions. For the  first time in generations, Indians are shaping their own destinies,  largely beyond the control of whites, reinventing Indian education and  justice, exploiting the principle of tribal sovereignty in ways that  empower tribal governments far beyond most American's imaginations.  While new found power has enriched tribal life and prospects, and has  made Native Americans fuller participants in the American dream, it has  brought tribal governments into direct conflict with local economics  and the federal government.Based on three years of research on  the Native American reservations, and written without a hidden  conservative bias or politically correct agenda,Killing the White  Man's Indiantakes on Native American politics and policies today  in all their contradictory--and controversial-guises."