Native American

 Award-winning reporter Judy Pasternak tells the haunting story of uranium mining on the Navajo desert and its terrible, long-ignored legacy.

A perfect introduction to a vital subject very few Americans understand—the constitutional status of American Indians

Few American s know that Indian tribes have a legal status unique among America’s distinct racial and ethnic groups: they are sovereign governments who engage in relations with Congress. This peculiar arrangement has led to frequent legal and political disputes—indeed, the history of American Indians and American law has been one of clashing values and sometimes uneasy compromise. In this clear-sighted account, American Indian scholar N. Bruce Duthu explains the landmark cases in Indian law of the past two centuries. Exploring subjects as diverse as jurisdictional authority, control of environmental resources, and the regulations that allow the operation of gambling casinos, American Indians and the Law gives us an accessible entry point into a vital facet of Indian history.

A collection of poems exploring a continuing struggle with identity; Everything this poet touches upon is volatile - the poet himself, the people and world around him, ideas and mythologies, the ghosts of memory and the dreams of possible futures, all seem to burst into fragments. Mark Turcotte uses poetry to gather up the pieces - the shards of joy and grief, peace and doubt, strength and temptation, questions and answers - as he tries to define and rediscover what is lost when everyday life becomes explosive. The first part of the book is a series of lyrical poems that all begin with the phrase "Back when I used to be Indian," a self-contradictory concept that strikes at the heart of Turcotte's identity. His absent father and his own experience of fatherhood are the subjects of a second group of poems, leading him to explore the legacy that burdened his father and, in turn, the different kind of legacy that now burdens him. In a third and final group, Turcotte's imagination reaches again into the many flames of his experience, leading toward the title poem, where even the most dangerous of fires become a guiding light.