William Hagan’s classic American Indians has become standard reading in the field of Native American history. Daniel M. Cobb has taken over the task of updating and revising the material, allowing the book to respond to the times. Spanning the arrival of white settlers in the Americas through the twentieth century, this concise account includes more than twenty new maps and illustrations, as well as a bibliographic essay that surveys the most recent research in Indian-white relations. With an introduction by Cobb, and a foreword by eminent historian Patricia Nelson Limerick, this fourth edition marks the fiftieth anniversary of the original publication of American Indians.

“The author has reduced the long story—often as tangled as a five-year-old’s fishing line—into a brief, clear, and highly interesting book. . . . A remarkable achievement.”

“The task is accomplished with ease and skill. The narrative is simple and direct and is relieved by a gentle sarcasm directed at the all too frequent hypocrisy and blindness of the ‘civilizing’ race, and by a resigned sympathy for the unhappy objects of the white man’s policy.”

“Dr. Hagan’s book provides an admirably succinct and intelligible account of a confused and confusing subject, that of the theory and practice of United States Indian Policy.”

“With brevity and care, William T. Hagan brings the story of Indian-white relations to the mainstream of American history. The result bears little resemblance to what most of us learned in history class.”