Book Review: The New Indian

Published in 1968, this book is older than I am. This particular bit of literature is from the first (and possibly only) printing.

Mr. Steiner is not Native American but he certainly has an affinity for them.The New Indians" looks at the roots and rise of Native American politics as seen in the rising wave of Civil Rights. 1968 was such a pivotal year, not least because that was the year Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. The book is related in a weird way.MLK Jr. brings forth such heated debate. Some people look at him almost as a modern day God for his work while others hate him and think of him as an agitator. Naturally, the truth is in between but without him it is questionable how much progress the Civil Rights Movement would have made. When no positive change has been seen for close to a hundred years it takes people taking extraordinary measures to accomplish new things.Steiner takes up that task.

It might be argued he relied too heavily on Vine Deloria Jr....or, considering the impact the Delorias have had in literature dating back to Ella, perhaps not heavily enough.In any case, he did a nice job of touching on the surface issues such as why Native Americans would distrust the "Anglo Saxons" and how the "Indian thought processes" differ from "White thought processes".

He brought history to bear and also current events...I was particularly fascinated with his theories on global tribal nationalism as evidenced by the Asian and African decolonization.This book was a wonderful look at the rise of the Red Power movement, the motivations, and possibilities. It is particularly invaluable because it is a look at events as they transpired and therefore could not know the rest of the story...

Too often historians are guilty of flawed upstreaming. They assume the outcome is known and guides the events that lead to it rather than recognizing the result is because of what happened...cause and result are two vastly divergent ideas.A person living through a turbulent time is in the perfect position to present their side of the story. Of course, a lot of behind the scenes happenings are outside their zone of awareness, but that perhaps adds to their value rather than detracts. At the risk of sounding like the paternalistic over watcher so despised by Steiner, it takes an outside eye to understand the whole picture.All in all, as the first book in my Dreamcatchers project, this was indeed a fortuitous find that will have more to bear on the project as it moves along.