Summary Of Imagining A Distant New World By Daniel K. Richter

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Dr. Daniel K. Richter is the Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History at University of Pennsylvania. His focus on early Native American history has led to his writing several lauded books including Before the Revolution: America’s Ancient Past, and The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization. Richter’s Facing East is perhaps, a culmination of his latter work. It is centered from a Native American perspective, an angle less thought about in general. Through the book, Richter takes this perspective into several different fields of study which includes literary analysis, environmental history, and anthropology. Combining different methodologies, Richter argues Americans can have a fruitful future, by understanding the importance of the American Indian perspective in America’s short history. …show more content…

However, Richter establishes the notion of imagination in the reader’s mind to make up for the amount speculation he uses. Using the scarce amount of sources at his disposal, Richter writes about what likely happened during Euro-Indian contact. A prime example of this is Richter making a connection between European shipwrecks, evidence of nontraditional items in Native communities before European contact, and movement of Indian tribes to coastal areas. The author relies on what is known of Native people during the Mississippian Period, and European accounts of their travels to North America. Lack of primary sources becomes a strong point of the book, allowing Richter to use his historical prowess and imagination to channel an unknown world in Indian

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