History's Shadow

Native Americans and Historical Consciousness in the Nineteenth Century

Cloth $40.00 ISBN: 9780226114941 Published July 2004

Paper $25.00 ISBN: 9780226114958 Published December 2006

E-book $7.00 to $25.00 About E-books ISBN: 9780226115115 Published September 2008

Who were the Native Americans? Where did they come from and how long ago? Did they have a history, and would they have a future? Questions such as these dominated intellectual life in the United States during the nineteenth century. And for many Americans, such questions about the original inhabitants of their homeland inspired a flurry of historical investigation, scientific inquiry, and heated political debate.

History's Shadow traces the struggle of Americans trying to understand the people who originally occupied the continent claimed as their own. Steven Conn considers how the question of the Indian compelled Americans to abandon older explanatory frameworks for sovereignty like the Bible and classical literature and instead develop new ones. Through their engagement with Native American language and culture, American intellectuals helped shape and define the emerging fields of archaeology, ethnology, linguistics, and art. But more important, the questions posed by the presence of the Indian in the United States forced Americans to confront the meaning of history itself, both that of Native Americans and their own: how it should be studied, what drove its processes, and where it might ultimately lead. The encounter with Native Americans, Conn argues, helped give rise to a distinctly American historical consciousness.

A work of enormous scope and intellect, History's Shadow will speak to anyone interested in Native Americans and their profound influence on our cultural imagination.

“History’s Shadow is an intelligent and comprehensive look at the place of Native Americans in Euro-American’s intellectual history. . . . Examining literature, painting, photography, ethnology, and anthropology, Conn mines the written record to discover how non-Native Americans thought about Indians.” —Joy S. Kasson, Los Angeles Times

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"History's Shadow--for all its wealth of detail and the sophistication of its analysis--is nevertheless clearly argued and is written in a style that would be accessible to advanced undergraduate students. . . . The strengths of History's Shadow lie in the exceptionally wide scope of its thesis and in the clarity with which it is presented. There is no jargon or convoluted syntax to confuse or muddy Conn's discussion of his main points. . . . Conn makes a compelling argument for reassessing the importance of the study of Native Americans on the development not only of American intellectual history in general, but for the specific disciplines that contributed toward shaping that history."—Charles L. P. Silet, History Teacher

“History’s Shadow is an intelligent and comprehensive look at the place of Native Americans in Euro-Americans' intellectual history during the period bracketed by the Lewis and Clark expedition at the beginning of the 19th century and the Wounded Knee massacre at its close. Examining literature, painting, photography, ethnology, and anthropology, Conn mines the written record to discover how non-Native Americans thought about Indians and what influence those ideas had upon the development of American science, social science, and history. . . . The most fascinating aspect of Conn’s book is his account of the rise of anthropology and the ways in which the ‘scientific’ study of culture erased the history of the native peoples as well as the story of Euro-American responsibility for their condition.”—Joy S. Kasson, Los Angeles Times

CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2006

"This is a big, complex, altogether impressive book that provides novel perspectives on a half dozen topics of major significance. Starting with an outline of the trajectory of Indians in US intellectual life from a pervasive, dynamic presence at the beginning of the 19th century to near nonexistence at its end, Conn demonstrates how studies of Native Americans were absolutely crucial to the development of archaeology, ethnology, and linguistics. . . . A fascinating book for anyone interested in Native American srudies, race theory, the history of history, science, and social science in the US, or US cultural and intellectual history."

"In this scrupulous and imaginative study, Steven Conn examines nineteenth-century American intellectual preoccupations with Native Americans."

"An excellent starting point for reexamining intellectual life in America."—Scott L. Pratt, Journal of American History

"A valuable contribution to the scholarly literature on European American representations of Indians."—Jeffrey Ostler, Great Plains Quarterly

Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
1. Native Americans and the Problem of History, Part I
2. Images of History: Indians in American Art
3. Fade to Silence: Indians and the Study of Language
4. The Past Is Underground: Archaeology and the Search for Indian History
5. The Art and Science of Describing and Classifying: The Triumph of Anthropology
6. Native Americans and the Problem of History, Part II
Notes
Bibliography
Index

For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu

Anthropology: Cultural and Social Anthropology

Archaeology

Art: American Art

History: American History | History of Ideas

Language and Linguistics: Anthropological/Sociological Aspects of Language

Native American Studies

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