Indian Givers: How Native Americans Transformed the World

Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2011 Prof. Weatherford writes systematically in explaining the achievement and contributions of Indians to the world. The 14 chapters cover from capitalism to American discovery. Five hundred years after Columbus, America for better or worse benefit from the wisdom and culture of Indian condensed in this little book. The food, culinary, medicine, political system from the civilized world get an Indian shadow, specially in the democracy of League of Iroquois. We owe Native Americans for their transformation to the world. This book gives a wealth of information as an eye-opener in great detail. Readers learn wide and deep in the culture and civilization that are made in America, far more superior than the Old World. The Native Americans surely enjoy a self-sufficient and happy life till Columbus. This book helps us ponder who is civilized/savage, war/peace, advance/primitive, sophisticated/awkward, complex/simple. Columbus discovered the New World in 1492, Weatherford helps to discover Native American transformation.

Anthropologist Jack Weatherford traces an informative and entertaining case for his main thesis - that the contributions of the Native American population to the Old World have not been truly or fully appreciated more than 500 years after Columbus landed. Written in a highly readable style, he describes how the New World revolutionized the Old World while the latter gobbled up the former. It is a fascinating story -- rich veins of gold and silver create a monetary economy that resulted in the rise of Europe's middle and merchant classes, the companies that formed to mine and provide miners and new settlers with goods and services lead to corporate power, and a rich variety of foods the natives raised in the Americas were shipped around the globe by those corporations and adopted into national diets so thoroughly that we now think of zucchini, tomatoes, and green beans as Italian food instead of imports. Weatherford also weaves in explanations of how mineral riches in the Americas ended mining on Africa's Gold Coast and indirectly led to slavery, how the Iroquois Confederacy contributed to the federal government system the United States adopted, and how science could have benefited sooner and faster by paying more attention to native medical practices. There are a few places where Weatherford probably pushes the idea a bit too far; but overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading "Indian Givers" and would suggest reading it with "1491," an equally intriguing look at how old, wise, and diverse the New World was before the Old World arrived to plunder.

I very much enjoy the work of Jack Weatherford and I found this book to be extremely enlightening. Very good reading.

I found this to be one of the most informative books I've ever read, and I've read most of the classics. When you read this book you must understand that the old adage that history is written by the conquerors is very true as is painfully illustrated in this book. I'm of mixed Caucasion and American Indian descent. Many of the questions that I've wondered about my whole life were answered in this book. Where did all of the Inca gold go to? Why isn't Spain a major world power? Why does it seem as though most foods are native to the Americas? These are questions that are "skirted" in popular history books, giving all of the stability of modern life to the credit of "civilized" Europeans. As for the quesiton of democracy, the United States is in no sense the same type of democracy as ancient Greece (which was really a republic). If you're open minded an logical this book will blow your mind.

I found this book in the bookstore at Mesa Verde National Monument, which is a terrific site near Cortez, Colorado. I can add very little to the other reviews I have seen except to say that this well-written, fascinating, easy-to-read & highly entertaining book will fill in so many of the missing pieces in everyone's history education, and that it is a superb thinking tool. It will help to cleanse your mind of all those silly, cherished, romantic notions and myths that most of us were spoon fed in public school or in the movie theatres. This book is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in how profoundly the Indians of the New World influenced our world, and in a saner educational system, this little book would be required reading for all students. Every chapter would make an excellent educational film of its own.

Weatherford brilliantly examines the collision of 2 very different cultures-Indian and European. This book is about what European civilization has gained from the Indians, but most importantly it also is about what we all have irrevocably lost by assuming that the European model was superior. Every American should read this book because it clearly shows why we are at this point in our history. The Indians lost their culture, becoming lost souls on the reservation. In many important ways, white Americans also lost their culture and also are lost souls. This book doesn't show how white, black and Indian Americans can somehow join together as true Americans in a true American culture, but it does show how we all happened to arrive at the place we are now