Choice. October
Kupperman has dramatically reconstructed her description of the interface between America's native residents and the English newcomers.... she humanizes both cultures as fully cognizant, social, and responsive.... The author has resilvered the mirror, reflecting images that will pique scholarly curiosity at every level.
Michael P. Winship
There is much of interest in this book.... Kupperman offers fascinating reinterpretations of people who bridged the two cultures— such as the Pilgrims' self-serving friend Squanto— and the tensions they experienced as a result.... her emphasis on cultural contexts and the recovery of Indian agency and endurance make her book representative of much recent work in this field.
James A. Cox
Indians and English provides a hard look at precolonial stereotypic sources and propaganda, and counters myth in many instances.... Recommended reading for American studies students and others interested in this period of American history.
David Sloan
Kupperman is illuminating on the subject of acculturation. Her gracefully written book should be well received....
From the Publisher
"Karen Kupperman's beautifully written and exhaustively researched book provides an important corrective to current scholarly debates about encounters between the native people of the Atlantic coast and the English in the 17th century." —Kathleen BragdonThe College of William and Mary
Daniel H. Usner
In this book, Kupperman boldly attempts to rescue English colonization in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century North America from its still familiar place in the national history of the United States... She brings us substantially closer to complexity in the earliest encounters between English colonists and Native Americans... Indians and English contributes significantly to rethinking about the discursive nature of identity in early America.
Peter H. Wood
By carefully revisiting a rich array of primary sources, Karen Kupperman shows us that contemporary observers never spoke with a single voice about early English encounters with Native Americans. Why? Because this first phase of contact was far more complex, long lasting, and central for all concerned than historians have understood. Kupperman's judicious and welcome reappraisal finds that, with regard to the Atlantic coast in the century after 1580, the Indians were strikingly diverse and resourceful; the commentators proved surprisingly numerous and observant, and generations of scholars have been incessantly simplistic and dismissive. Indians and English will encourage renewed thought, study, and discussion that is long overdue.
