Helpful Score: 3
Publisher's Note
After winning an eight year legal battle, here is the controversial book that powerfully sheds new light on the plight of Native Americans. Matthiessen's urgent accounts and absorbing journalistic details make it impossible to ignore the message they so eloquently proclaim.
Industry reviews
Matthiessen "has two subjects in 'Indian Country': the destruction of America's last open land by the grinding pressure of big industry, in part the energy industry; and the tragic struggle of the last people on the land to preserver their shrinking territories, and even more, to preserve the holy balance of their traditions, linked to the complex, fragile ecology of the land."
New Republic - Paul Zweig
"The quality which makes "Indian Country" "most unusual and invaluable is its effort to infuse the inevitable anger and sorrow with a sense of immediate urgency, with prophetic warnings....Few people could have been better equipped than Mr. Matthiessen to face this formidable task. He has earned the right to be listened to seriously on the ways in which tribal cultures can teach us to know ourselves and the earth."
New York Times Book Review - David Wagoner
"If [this book] reaches the audience that it merits, it could leave an impact comparable to that of Rachel Carson's 'Silent Spring' twenty years ago....Probably no one in American as traveled in person, often at physical risk (although he never mentions this) to so many places that are under siege."
Natural History - Dee Brown
After winning an eight year legal battle, here is the controversial book that powerfully sheds new light on the plight of Native Americans. Matthiessen's urgent accounts and absorbing journalistic details make it impossible to ignore the message they so eloquently proclaim.
Industry reviews
Matthiessen "has two subjects in 'Indian Country': the destruction of America's last open land by the grinding pressure of big industry, in part the energy industry; and the tragic struggle of the last people on the land to preserver their shrinking territories, and even more, to preserve the holy balance of their traditions, linked to the complex, fragile ecology of the land."
New Republic - Paul Zweig
"The quality which makes "Indian Country" "most unusual and invaluable is its effort to infuse the inevitable anger and sorrow with a sense of immediate urgency, with prophetic warnings....Few people could have been better equipped than Mr. Matthiessen to face this formidable task. He has earned the right to be listened to seriously on the ways in which tribal cultures can teach us to know ourselves and the earth."
New York Times Book Review - David Wagoner
"If [this book] reaches the audience that it merits, it could leave an impact comparable to that of Rachel Carson's 'Silent Spring' twenty years ago....Probably no one in American as traveled in person, often at physical risk (although he never mentions this) to so many places that are under siege."
Natural History - Dee Brown
