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September 2015 Vol. 53 No. 1

The Northwest Coast volume (CH, Mar'91, 28-3640) of the Handbook of North American Indians (vol. 7) is now 25 years old, and Kan (Dartmouth) suggests it is time to reassess the field of Tlingit research.  A growing body of literature on the Pacific Coast takes an Indigenous–non-Indigenous collaborative approach to assessing current knowledge and research on a particular people, such as editor Robert T. Boyd’s Chinookan Peoples of the Lower Columbia (CH, Jun'14, 51-5765).  Arising from a clan conference, the 24 chapters in Sharing our Knowledge are grouped into five parts discussing elders and teachers (a number of quite moving contributions), history, material culture, tourism, repatriation, subsistence, and art.  Alaska provides an interesting context for Indigenous studies given its relationship and distance to the lower 48.  Diane Purvis discusses the dynamics surrounding the concept of “Indian country” and how the legal system treated the Tlingit.  Another example of the book’s value beyond its regional focus, recommended to others working on Indigenous education, is Thomas F. Thornton’s chapter arguing for a place-based education curriculum, which builds on his past work, such as Being and Place among the Tlingit (CH, Sep'08, 46-0391).  Typically, the more interesting a book is, the more tangents are available to readers.  This book sent this reviewer on numerous tangents.

--M. Ebert, University of British Columbia

Summing Up: Highly recommended. All general and academic collections.