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Invasion and Transformation examines the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and transformations in political, social, cultural, and religious life in Mexico during the Conquest and the ensuing colonial period. In particular, contributors consider the ways in which the Conquest itself was remembered, both in its immediate aftermath and in later centuries.

Was Moteuczoma really as weak as history portrayed him? As Susan D. Gillespie instead suggests in "Blaming Moteuczoma," the representation of Moteuczoma as a scapegoat for the Aztec defeat can be understood as a product of indigenous resistance and accommodation following the imposition of Spanish colonialism. Chapters address the various roles (real and imagined) of Moteuczoma, Cortés, and Malinche in the fall of the Aztecs; the representation of history in colonial art; and the complex cultural transformations that actually took place.

Including full-color reproductions of seventeenth-century paintings of the Conquest, Invasion and Transformation will appeal to scholars and students of Latin American history and anthropology, art history, colonial literature, and transatlantic studies. Contributors include Rebecca P. Brienen, Louise M. Burkhart, Ximena Chávez Balderas, Constance Cortez, Viviana Diáz Balsera, Martha Few, Susan D. Gillespie, Margaret A. Jackson, Diana Magaloni Kerpel, Matthew Restall, Michael Schreffler.

The struggle between Indians and whites for land did not end on the battlefields in the 1800s. When this hostile era closed with Native Americans forced onto reservations, no one expected that rich natural resources lay beneath these lands that white America would desperately desire. Yet oil, timber, fish, coal, water, and other resources were discovered to be in great demand in the mainstream market, and a new war began with Indian tribes and their leaders trying to protect their tribal natural resources throughout the twentieth century.

In The Invasion of Indian Country in the 20th Century, Donald Fixico details the course of this struggle, providing a wealth of information on the resources possessed by individual tribes and the way in which they were systematically defrauded and stripped of these resources. Fixico contends that federal policies originally devised to protect Indian interests ironically worked against the Indian nations as the tribes employed new tactics with the Council of Energy Resources Tribes, using the law in courts and applying aggressive business leadership to combat the capitalist invasion by mainstream America.

Fixico's analysis of this war being waged throughout the century and today serves as an indispensable reference tool for anyone interested in Native American history and current government policy with regard to Indian lands.

The Invasion of Indian Country in the Twentieth Century, Second Edition is updated through the first decade of the twenty-first century and contains a new chapter challenging Americans--Indian and non-Indian--to begin healing the earth. This analysis of the struggle to protect not only natural resources but also a way of life serves as an indispensable tool for students or anyone interested in Native American history and current government policy with regard to Indian lands or the environment.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is a low-budget science fiction film that has become a classic. The suspense of the film lies in discovering, along with Miles, the central character (played by Kevin McCarthy), who is "real" and who is not, and whether Miles and Becky (played by Dana Wynter) will escape the pod takeover. As the center of the film moves outward from a small-town group of neighbors to the larger political scene and institutional network (of police, the FBI, hospital workers), the ultimate question is whether "they" have taken over altogether. Although Invasion can be interpreted in interesting ways along psychological and feminist lines, its importance as a text has centered primarily on political and sociological readings. In his introduction to this volume, Al LaValley explores the politics of the original author of the magazine serial story on which the film is based, Don Siegel; and of its screenwriter, Daniel Mainwaring. And he looks at the ways the studio (Allied Artists) tried to neutralize certain readings by tacking on an explanatory frame story. The commentary section includes readings by Stephen King, Peter Biskind, Nora Sayre, and Peter Bogdanovich. A section of postproduction documents reproduced here (many for the first time) includes many written by Wanger and Siegel. The volume also contains two previously unpublished framing scripts written for Orson Welles. For students and individual enthusiasts, the contextual materials are particularly interesting in showing how crucial the postproduction history of a film can be. A filmography and bibliography are also included in the volume. Al LaValley is the director of film studies at Dartmouth. He is the author of many articles on film and editor of Mildred Pierce in the Wisconsin screenplay series.

When the first television was demonstrated in 1927, a headline in The New York Times read, “Like a Photo Come to Life.” It was a momentous occasion. But the power of television wasn’t fully harnessed until the 1950s, when the medium was, as Eric Burns says, “At its most preoccupying, its most life-altering.” And Burns, a former NBC News correspondent who is an Emmy-winner for his broadcast writing, knows about the impact of television.

Invasion of the Mind Snatchers chronicles the influence of television that was watched daily by the baby boomer generation. As kids became spellbound by Howdy Doody and The Ed Sullivan Show, Burns reveals, they often acted out their favorite programs. Likewise, they purchased the merchandise being promoted by performers, and became fascinated by the personalities they saw on screen, often emulating their behavior. It was the first generation raised by TV and Burns looks at both the promise of broadcasting as espoused by the inventors, and how that promise was both redefined and lost by the corporations who helped to spread the technology.

Yet Burns also contextualizes the social, cultural, and political events that helped shape the Fifties—from Sputnik and the Rosenberg trial to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare.  In doing so, he charts the effect of television on politics, religion, race, and sex, and how the medium provided a persuasive message to the young, impressionable viewers.

The Invasion, a novel originally published in 1932, marked the debut of historical novelist Janet Lewis, who went on to write numerous poems and short stories as well as the novels The Wife of Martin Guerre and The Trial of Soren Quist. Lewis grew up in the Lake country of the Old Northwest and The Invasion is based on family stories she heard as a child.The Invasion displays well-researched historical accuracy, an innate understanding of and feeling for Native American culture enhanced by the author's fluency in the Ojibway language, and an economy of style that is remarkable for a first novel. 
     In 1790, John Johnston, a cultivated young Irishman, came to the far corner of the Northwest Territory to make his fortune intending to spend only a year. Instead he married Ozhah-guscoday- wayquay (The Woman of the Glade), daughter of the Ojibway chief Waub- ojeeg, and settled on the St. Mary's River. Together they founded a family that was loved, respected, and famous throughout the region for honesty, fairness, and hospitality. Their home was the center of culture for the area and for every visiting traveler, Native American or white. The Invasion chronicles a time when one culture violently supplanted another even as it depicts a family that blends two cultures together. 
     Henry Rowe Schoolcraft considered the Johnston family his most valued connection to the Native American population. He eventually married Jane Johnston, daughter of John and The Woman of the Glade, and remain close to her entire family. In his diary, Schoolcraft wrote of the Johnstons, "I have in fact stumbled, as it were, on the only family in Northwest America who could in Indian lore have acted as my guide, philosopher, and friend."

Britain's Attempt to Subdue Virginia and End the Revolution
The American War for Independence was fought in nearly every colony, but some colonies witnessed far more conflict than others. In the first half of the war, the bulk of military operations were concentrated in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. A shift in British strategy southward after the Battle of Monmouth in 1778 triggered numerous military engagements in 1779 and 1780 in Georgia and the Carolinas.Surprisingly, Virginia, the largest of the original thirteen colonies, saw relatively little fighting for the first six years of the Revolutionary War. This changed in 1781 when British and American forces converged on Virginia. The war’s arrival did not result from one particular decision or event, but rather, a series of incidents and battles beginning in the fall of 1780 at Kings Mountain, South Carolina.
Benedict Arnold’s sudden appearance in Virginia in early 1781 with 1,600 seasoned British troops and his successful raid up the James River to Richmond and subsequent occupation of Portsmouth, demonstrated Virginia’s vulnerability to attack and the possibility that the colonies could be divided and subdued piecemeal, a strategy Britain had attempted to deploy several times earlier in the war. British General Henry Clinton’s decision to reinforce Arnold in Virginia expanded Britain’s hold on the colony while events in North Carolina, including the battle of Guilford Court House, led British General Charles Cornwallis to conclude that defeating the Patriots in Virginia was the key to ending the war. As a result, Cornwallis marched his army north in May 1781 to assume command of what was now a very powerful British force of over 7,000 troops. The war had returned to Virginia with a vengeance, and how it did so and what happened as a result is the focus of The Invasion of Virginia 1781.