The Roots of Dependency: Subsistance, Environment, and Social Change among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos

Richard White’s study of the collapse into ‘dependency’ of three Native American subsistence economies represents the best kind of interdisciplinary effort. Here ideas and approaches from several fields–mainly anthropology, history, and ecology–are fruitfully combined in one inquiring mind closely focused on a related set of large, salient problems…A very sophisticated study, a ‘best read’ in Indian history. –American Historical Review The book is original, enlightening, and rewarding. It points the way to a holistic manner in which tribal histories and studies of Indian-white relations should be written in the future. It can be recommended to anyone interested in Indian affairs, particularly in the question of the present-day dependency plight of the tribes. –Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., Western Historical Quarterly The Roots of Dependency is a model study. With a provocative thesis tightly argued, it is extensively researched and well written. The nonreductionist, interdisciplinary approach provides insight heretofore beyond the range of traditional methodologies…To the historiography of the American Indian this book is an important addition. –W. David Baird, American Indian Quarterly Richard White is a professor of history at the University of Washington. He is the winner of the Albert J. Beveridge Award of the American Historical Asso-ciation, the James A. Rawley Prize presented by the Organization of Ameri-can Historians and the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. His books include The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815, It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own : A History of the American West and The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River