The middle ground : Indians, empires, and republics in the Great Lakes region, 1650-1815 / Richard White.

Author
White, Richard, 1947- [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Description
xvi, 544 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Availability

Copies in the Library

Location Call Number Status Location Service Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks E99.A35 W48 1991 Browse related items Request
    Forrestal Annex - ReserveE99.A35 W48 1991 Browse related items Request
      Forrestal Annex - ReserveE99.A35 W48 1991 Browse related items Request

        Details

        Subject(s)
        Series
        Cambridge studies in North American Indian history [More in this series]
        Summary note
        This book seeks to step outside the simple stories of Indian/white relations--stories of conquest and assimilation and stories of cultural persistence. It is, instead, about a search for accommodation and common meaning. It tells how Europeans and Indians met, regarding each other as alien, as virtually nonhuman, and how between 1650 and 1815 they constructed a common, mutually comprehensible world in the region around the Great Lakes that the French called the "Pays d'en haut". Here the older worlds of the Algonquins and various Europeans overlapped, and their mixture created new systems of meaning and of exchange. Finally, the book tells of the breakdown of accommodation and common meanings and the recreation of the Indians as alien and exotic. The process of accommodation described in this book takes place in a middle ground, a place in between cultures and peoples, and in between empires and non-state villages. On the middle ground people try to persuade others who are different than themselves by appealing to what they perceive to be the values and practices of those others. From the creative misunderstandings that result, there arise shared meanings and new practices.
        Bibliographic references
        Includes bibliographical references and index.
        Contents
        • List of abbreviations
        • Introduction
        • Refugees : a world made of fragments
        • The middle ground
        • The fur trade
        • The alliance
        • Republicans and rebels
        • The clash of empires
        • Pontiac and the restoration of the middle ground
        • The British alliance
        • The contest of villagers
        • Confederacies
        • The politics of benevolence
        • Epilogue.
        ISBN
        • 052137104X
        • 9780521371049
        • 0521424607 ((pbk.))
        • 9780521424608 ((pbk.))
        LCCN
        90002679
        OCLC
        22344887
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