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A significant and innovative contribution to Austin studies. How did an Illinois Methodist homesteader in the West come to create one of the most significant cosmological syntheses in American literature? In this study, Hoyer draws on his own knowledge of biblical religion and Native American cultures to explore Austin's creation of the "mythology of the American continent" she so valued. Austin lived in and wrote about "the land of little rain," semiarid and arid parts of California and Nevada that were home to the Northern Paiute, Shoshone, Interior Chumash, and Yokut peoples. Hoyer makes new and provocative connections between Austin and spiritual figures like Wovoka, the prophet of the Ghost Dance religion, and writers like Zitkala-sa and Mourning Dove, and he provides a particularly fine reading of Cogowea.

Colin G. Calloway collects, for the first time, documents describing the full range of encounters of Indians and Europeans in northern New England during the Colonial era. His comprehensive and highly readable introduction to the subject of Indian and European interaction in northern New England covers early encounters, missionary efforts, diplomacy, war, commerce, and cultural interchange and features a wide range of primary sources, including narratives, letters, account books, treaties, and council proceedings. Together with period illustrations, the documents testify to the richness and variety of the inter-ethnic relations in northern New England. They also show that while conflict certainly occurred, the encounters were also marked by cooperation and accommodation.