The Roots of Dependency: Subsistance, Environment, and Social Change among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos [Paperback]

Richard White (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0803297246 | ISBN-13: 978-0803297241 | Publication Date: August 1, 1988

'Richard White's study of the collapse into 'dependency' of three Native American subsistence economies represents the best kind of interdisciplinary effort. Here ideas and approaches from several fields - mainly anthropology, history, and ecology - are fruitfully combined in one inquiring mind closely focused on a related set of large, salient problems...A very sophisticated study, a 'best read' in Indian history' - "American Historical Review". 'This book is original, enlightening, and rewarding. It points the way to a holistic manner in which tribal histories and studies of Indian-white relations should be written in the future. It can be recommended to anyone interested in Indian affairs, particularly in the question of the present-day dependency plight of the tribes' - Alvin M. Josephy, Junior, "Western Historical Quarterly".'"The Roots of Dependency" is a model study. With a provocative thesis tightly argued, it is extensively researched and well written. The nonreductionist, interdisciplinary approach provides insight heretofore beyond the range of traditional methodologies...To the historiography of the American Indian this book is an important addition' - W.David Baird, "American Indian Quarterly". Richard White is a professor of history at the University of Washington. He is the winner of the Albert J. Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association, the James A. Rawley Prize presented by the Organization of American Historians and the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. His books include "The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815", "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own: A History of the American West" and "The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River".

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Richard White's study of the collapse into `dependency' of three Native American subsistence economies represents the best kind of interdisciplinary effort. Here ideas and approaches from several fields-mainly anthropology, history, and ecology-are fruitfully combined in one inquiring mind closely focused on a related set of large, salient problems. . . . A very sophisticated study, a `best read' in Indian history."-American Historical Review (American Historical Review )

"The book is original, enlightening, and rewarding. It points the way to a holistic manner in which tribal histories and studies of Indian-white relations should be written in the future. It can be recommended to anyone interested in Indian affairs, particularly in the question of the present-day dependency plight of the tribes."-Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., Western Historical Quarterly (Western Historical Quarterly )

"The Roots of Dependency is a model study. With a provocative thesis tightly argued, it is extensively researched and well written. The nonreductionist, interdisciplinary approach provides insight heretofore beyond the range of traditional methodologies. . . . To the historiography of the American Indian this book is an important addition."-W. David Baird, American Indian Quarterly (W. David Baird American Indian Quarterly ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Richard White is a professor of history at the University of Washington. He is the winner of the Albert J. Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association, the James A. Rawley Prize presented by the Organization of American Historians and the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. His books include The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815, "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own": A History of the American West and The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River

Product Details

• Paperback: 433 pages
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press (August 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803297246
• ISBN-13: 978-0803297241
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #814,609 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Anthropological and Economic Examination of Depossession, December 6, 2003

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James R. Maclean (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Roots of Dependency: Subsistance, Environment, and Social Change among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos (Hardcover)

While many works have been published addressing the history of the American Indian nations and their liquidation, it is rare to find this addressed in a rigorous anthropological way. In particular, anthropological analysis of Native American dispossession seems to treat the Indians as a subject and the European Americans as a control group--somehow above anthropological scrutiny. White, therefore, renders a rare service in treating both the Indians and their European American interlocutors as vulnerable actors, subject to misunderstandings, panic, and folly.

Another, more important virtue of this book is to explode persistent notions about the economic organization of pre-industrial peoples. White explodes--as did Polanyi, et al--the Hayekian notion of primitive economic man. We learn that "trade" among the profiled Indian nations was not driven by prices and scarcity, but by honor and reciprocal obligation. This misconception has continued to plague Western relations either with pre-modern societies (e.g., in West Africa & the Pacific) but also marginalized communities within industrialized societies (e.g., South Central Los Angeles, or North African diaspora communities in urban France).

The familiar, morally satisfying analyses of Western/pre-modern contacts, and their abysmal aftermaths, tend to rely on obvious criminality on the part of the Western actors. This is insidious because it minimizes the implications of an historical narrative for modern social relations (by making it seem like a bizarre anomaly) and because it makes it so much harder to witness and protest modern destructive behavior.