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Article: Savage Truth-Richard Brookhiser.(Review)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- May 3, 1999
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Mr. Brookhiser, an NR senior editor, is author most recently of Alexander Hamilton, American.
The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America, by James Wilson (Atlantic, 496 pp., $27)
What do you call the aboriginal inhabitants of North America? "Indians" brings to mind athletic teams, Jeep Cherokees, and westerns. "Native Americans" evokes red-skinned Thoreaus and New Age drumming ceremonies. James Wilson, the British author of The Earth Shall Weep, uses both terms for lack of better, though he doesn't much like either. "What unites them," he says, is an assumption that Indians are "exotic relic[s] of some earlier stage that we have passed through: ...