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A Strange Likeness: Becoming Red and White in Eighteenth-Century North America
The histories told about American Indian and European encounters on the frontiers of North America are usually about cultural conflict. This book takes a different tack by looking at how much Indians and Europeans had in common. In six chapters, this book compares Indian and European ideas about land, government, recordkeeping, international alliances, gender, and the human body. Focusing on eastern North America in the 18th century, up through the end of the Seven Years War in 1763, each chapter discusses how Indians and Europeans shared some core beliefs and practices. Paradoxically, the more American Indians and Europeans came to know each other, the more they came to see each other as different, so different indeed that they appeared to be each other's opposite. European colonists thought Indians a primitive people, laudable perhaps for their simplicity but not destined to possess and rule over North America. Simultaneously, Indians came to view Europeans as their
antithesis, equally despicable for their insatiable greed and love of money. Thus, even though American Indians and Europeans started the 18th century with ideas in common, they ended the century convinced of their intractable differences. The 18th century was a crucial moment in American history, as British colonists and their Anglo-American successors rapidly pushed westward, sometimes making peace and sometimes making war with the powerful Indian nations-the Iroquois and Creek confederacies, Cherokee nation, and other Native peoples-standing between them and the west. But the 18th century also left an important legacy in the world of ideas, as Indians and Europeans abandoned an initial willingness to recognize in each other a common humanity so as to instead develop new ideas rooted in the conviction that, by custom and perhaps even by nature, Native Americans and Europeans were peoples fundamentally at odds.
antithesis, equally despicable for their insatiable greed and love of money. Thus, even though American Indians and Europeans started the 18th century with ideas in common, they ended the century convinced of their intractable differences. The 18th century was a crucial moment in American history, as British colonists and their Anglo-American successors rapidly pushed westward, sometimes making peace and sometimes making war with the powerful Indian nations-the Iroquois and Creek confederacies, Cherokee nation, and other Native peoples-standing between them and the west. But the 18th century also left an important legacy in the world of ideas, as Indians and Europeans abandoned an initial willingness to recognize in each other a common humanity so as to instead develop new ideas rooted in the conviction that, by custom and perhaps even by nature, Native Americans and Europeans were peoples fundamentally at odds.
- GenresHistory
211 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 18, 2020
Hard time reviewing this book...giving it four stars mostly because the evidence used from 18th century documents in this is amazing. Like I feel pretty familiar with "eastern woodlands" (hate that term) Indigenous history but there were tons of details in here that were fascinating and new to me. That said, as one of the other reviewers noted, the overall framing is really questionable ("Europeans and Indians had many things in common"). It works somewhat in certain sections--the land chapter was really interesting in addressing stereotypes about Native concepts of land. But in others, like the "kings" chapter, I really struggled to see the supposed commonalities beyond like, "there was some kind of leader." Also the gender chapter............was pretty messy, though it is probably going to end up being useful to my dissertation, ironically.
There's basically no engagement with Indigenous studies or really any Indigenous perspective outside of the 18th century (notably male) British sources the author uses. While she does try to address the inherent biases this creates, I was often frustrated by things she took for granted to be accurate. The gender chapter is a great example in the sense that Shoemaker basically is like "it's obviously a problem that all the sources on Indigenous gender are through white men" but then......she doesn't do anything to attempt to mitigate that. This was published in 2004, so I'm not sure if I'm expecting too much from it, but it was a bit frustrating.
There's basically no engagement with Indigenous studies or really any Indigenous perspective outside of the 18th century (notably male) British sources the author uses. While she does try to address the inherent biases this creates, I was often frustrated by things she took for granted to be accurate. The gender chapter is a great example in the sense that Shoemaker basically is like "it's obviously a problem that all the sources on Indigenous gender are through white men" but then......she doesn't do anything to attempt to mitigate that. This was published in 2004, so I'm not sure if I'm expecting too much from it, but it was a bit frustrating.
December 2, 2024
A Strange Likeness is probably one of the finest pieces of academic literature I’ve ever read. With its contents being neatly packaged into an easily readable format, I never felt myself bored while perusing this book. Shoemaker draws from a wide variety of sources while constructing the patchwork of A Strange Likeness.
In A Strange Likeness, Shoemaker only uses primary sources, not even considering the secondary sources of her peers or fellow researchers. While this may seem steeped in arrogance, as one reads A Strange Likeness, one will begin to realize that Shoemaker does not need the aid of secondary sources- as her command of primary sources is second-to-none. Shoemaker utilizes each and every one of her primary sources in a way that feels like prose, and in a seamless, inobtrustive way. She draws from reports, logistics documents, records, testimonials- an exhaustive variety of carefully handpicked sources that she inserts into her work and picks apart. Shoemaker, it seems, leaves no (scholarly) stone unturned.
In regards to organization, A Strange Likeness is neatly packed into multiple chapter-categories, and Shoemaker effortlessly avoids the pitfalls of this method of organization that I have seen historians fall to time and time again. For instance, if she finds herself writing about a topic in one chapter-category that belongs to another chapter-category, she simply addresses it head-on, without giving in to prattling or deviating too far from the topic at hand. In this way, each individual chapter-category is far from being self-contained, but the overall organization of each one is so well-done that Shoemaker never confuses the reader.
A final compliment I must give to Shoemaker is how she addresses potential contradictions in her work. Shoemaker runs into contradictions semi-often in A Strange Likeness, and she refuses to avoid them. Rather than give into the contradictions, she addresses them head-on- which is a bold move that pays off for her in the long run. With each contradiction that she faces in her work, she discusses, notarizes, explains, and makes it readily apparent that she’s not trying to make an argument- she’s trying to explore a topic that is already contentious in nature. With a bold presence and endless reserves of literary talent, Nancy Shoemaker authors a worthy companion book to any student or scholar of the Atlantic world.
In A Strange Likeness, Shoemaker only uses primary sources, not even considering the secondary sources of her peers or fellow researchers. While this may seem steeped in arrogance, as one reads A Strange Likeness, one will begin to realize that Shoemaker does not need the aid of secondary sources- as her command of primary sources is second-to-none. Shoemaker utilizes each and every one of her primary sources in a way that feels like prose, and in a seamless, inobtrustive way. She draws from reports, logistics documents, records, testimonials- an exhaustive variety of carefully handpicked sources that she inserts into her work and picks apart. Shoemaker, it seems, leaves no (scholarly) stone unturned.
In regards to organization, A Strange Likeness is neatly packed into multiple chapter-categories, and Shoemaker effortlessly avoids the pitfalls of this method of organization that I have seen historians fall to time and time again. For instance, if she finds herself writing about a topic in one chapter-category that belongs to another chapter-category, she simply addresses it head-on, without giving in to prattling or deviating too far from the topic at hand. In this way, each individual chapter-category is far from being self-contained, but the overall organization of each one is so well-done that Shoemaker never confuses the reader.
A final compliment I must give to Shoemaker is how she addresses potential contradictions in her work. Shoemaker runs into contradictions semi-often in A Strange Likeness, and she refuses to avoid them. Rather than give into the contradictions, she addresses them head-on- which is a bold move that pays off for her in the long run. With each contradiction that she faces in her work, she discusses, notarizes, explains, and makes it readily apparent that she’s not trying to make an argument- she’s trying to explore a topic that is already contentious in nature. With a bold presence and endless reserves of literary talent, Nancy Shoemaker authors a worthy companion book to any student or scholar of the Atlantic world.
October 30, 2015
Nancy Shoemaker, admirably enough, sets out to explain to her reader the similarities between Native American Indians and the Europeans they encountered throughout the colonial era. She intends to show that although Europeans and Indians had great differences, there was also a strange likeness to their two cultures. She explains it best herself at the beginning of the book.
“It is common knowledge that when American Indians and Europeans met in North America, they had cultures in conflict. It is less widely known or acknowledged that Indians and Europeans also had cultures in common. Under the metal armor and beards, face paint and tattoos, there rested a bedrock of shared ideas. This book digs down to that bedrock.”
This section, like most of the rest of the book, is quite clear and leaves no doubt in the readers’ minds about the author’s intention. Unfortunately, the remainder of the book provides little evidence for her thesis. It matters little that her information is clearly presented and her vignettes are well written since they do not go to prove her point. It is not fair to discount her thesis on the basis of her weak evidence, but to accept her theory on the basis she gives would be folly.
Shortly after her introducing her grand plan to show how similar European and Indian cultures really were, Shoemaker backtracks and gives herself a much more limited assertion. She claims that what really united these two peoples was their common humanity and cognitive toolkit. By this, she means that both groups were composed of people (most of whom) had brains. While this weakening of the thesis is horrible in that it reduces the conclusions to something all thinking readers already knew, it is good, in an odd sense, because after 143 pages of evidence, common humanity is all she can show.
The fault lies not with the writing style or the organization, instead, the problem is entirely with evidence selection. In fact, her writing abilities shine. The book is organized into six different chapters: land, kings, writing, alliances, gender, and race. Each of these chapters focuses on how both Europeans and Indians viewed the topic in the title. This is an excellent way to organize the information. While chronological organization is usually beneficial, with a topic this sweeping and nuanced, a topical system works better for this type of book. The chapters tends to be focused well and remain on topic.
Another of the book’s strengths is its style. Shoemaker’s writing is clear and readable. It walks the fine line between a dry academic tone and an overly chatty populist manner. This is difficult and somewhat unusual, as many historical books tend to fall into the chasm on one side or the other. If only her argumentation had been as powerful as her presentation, the book would have been a quite useful one indeed.
This comes back to the ultimate problem with the book: the argument. Shoemaker’s argument fails in two places. First, her evidence simply does not support her thesis. While Shoemaker attempts to show similarities between the understandings held by the Indians and Europeans, she spends most of her time showing the differences. She uses the entirety of the chapter on land showing differences between the European and Indian understanding of land ownership. Most of the rest of the book has the same effect. Many stories are told and examples given, but they all prove the exact opposite of her point. It would be entirely possible for a reader to walk away from the book believing that Indians and Europeans were more dissimilar than he had thought before he picked the book up. She relies entirely on their common humanity for their commonalities.
Second, she fails to show how the Europeans and Indians were more similar than any other two groups of people. She never once shows how though the Europeans and Indians had different views, their ideas were closer than the Europeans or Indians and any other group of people. One of her laboriously protracted examples is a story about Indians who piled up rocks to commemorate battles and deaths. She compares this to European marks and claims on lands, and believes this shows a similarity. Since she provides no contrast though, readers cannot understand how this makes Europeans and Indians any more similar than Europeans and Old Testament Jews, who also remembered important places by piling rocks on top of each other.
Shoemaker’s intention is clear, but the connections between the evidence and her thesis are tenuous at best. For her thesis to be more believable, she needed much more than she presented the reader. If that information does not support her idea, what she really needed was a new thesis. Either way, her thesis and evidence do not work in tandem. Shoemaker’s style is wonderful, but style without substance is only for harlequin romances and radio talk shows, not serious works of history.
“It is common knowledge that when American Indians and Europeans met in North America, they had cultures in conflict. It is less widely known or acknowledged that Indians and Europeans also had cultures in common. Under the metal armor and beards, face paint and tattoos, there rested a bedrock of shared ideas. This book digs down to that bedrock.”
This section, like most of the rest of the book, is quite clear and leaves no doubt in the readers’ minds about the author’s intention. Unfortunately, the remainder of the book provides little evidence for her thesis. It matters little that her information is clearly presented and her vignettes are well written since they do not go to prove her point. It is not fair to discount her thesis on the basis of her weak evidence, but to accept her theory on the basis she gives would be folly.
Shortly after her introducing her grand plan to show how similar European and Indian cultures really were, Shoemaker backtracks and gives herself a much more limited assertion. She claims that what really united these two peoples was their common humanity and cognitive toolkit. By this, she means that both groups were composed of people (most of whom) had brains. While this weakening of the thesis is horrible in that it reduces the conclusions to something all thinking readers already knew, it is good, in an odd sense, because after 143 pages of evidence, common humanity is all she can show.
The fault lies not with the writing style or the organization, instead, the problem is entirely with evidence selection. In fact, her writing abilities shine. The book is organized into six different chapters: land, kings, writing, alliances, gender, and race. Each of these chapters focuses on how both Europeans and Indians viewed the topic in the title. This is an excellent way to organize the information. While chronological organization is usually beneficial, with a topic this sweeping and nuanced, a topical system works better for this type of book. The chapters tends to be focused well and remain on topic.
Another of the book’s strengths is its style. Shoemaker’s writing is clear and readable. It walks the fine line between a dry academic tone and an overly chatty populist manner. This is difficult and somewhat unusual, as many historical books tend to fall into the chasm on one side or the other. If only her argumentation had been as powerful as her presentation, the book would have been a quite useful one indeed.
This comes back to the ultimate problem with the book: the argument. Shoemaker’s argument fails in two places. First, her evidence simply does not support her thesis. While Shoemaker attempts to show similarities between the understandings held by the Indians and Europeans, she spends most of her time showing the differences. She uses the entirety of the chapter on land showing differences between the European and Indian understanding of land ownership. Most of the rest of the book has the same effect. Many stories are told and examples given, but they all prove the exact opposite of her point. It would be entirely possible for a reader to walk away from the book believing that Indians and Europeans were more dissimilar than he had thought before he picked the book up. She relies entirely on their common humanity for their commonalities.
Second, she fails to show how the Europeans and Indians were more similar than any other two groups of people. She never once shows how though the Europeans and Indians had different views, their ideas were closer than the Europeans or Indians and any other group of people. One of her laboriously protracted examples is a story about Indians who piled up rocks to commemorate battles and deaths. She compares this to European marks and claims on lands, and believes this shows a similarity. Since she provides no contrast though, readers cannot understand how this makes Europeans and Indians any more similar than Europeans and Old Testament Jews, who also remembered important places by piling rocks on top of each other.
Shoemaker’s intention is clear, but the connections between the evidence and her thesis are tenuous at best. For her thesis to be more believable, she needed much more than she presented the reader. If that information does not support her idea, what she really needed was a new thesis. Either way, her thesis and evidence do not work in tandem. Shoemaker’s style is wonderful, but style without substance is only for harlequin romances and radio talk shows, not serious works of history.
May 31, 2020
There is much about ASL which deserves high praise. The author consolidated a comprehensive review of hundreds of primary and secondary sources into a brief (barely more than 140 pages) but still thorough presentation of her argument: that European colonists, Euro American settlers, and Native Americans had much in common which underlay the differences between them. Eg, they all used writing, had a leader called a king/micos, formed alliances with other groups, developed notions of gender and race, etc.
In the context of these basic human tendencies Shoemaker pointed out how their differences played out. In fact, oftentimes she spends as much or more time discussing their differences as their similarities.
This book was highly readable for a number of reasons. First, unlike many academic scholars Shoemaker wrote in a direct, narrative style of prose. Second, the chapters were organized into subsections to illustrate the points she tried to make. Third, her timely use of examples and/or quotations from primary sources allowed her to make her argument effectively. Finally, there were some paintings and other visual aids like an indigenous map which made the text more engaging.
Overall, I would recommend this book most highly for anyone interested in a different and informative perspective on the interactions which took place between the European colonists, the Euro American settlers, and some of the Native American tribes residing in the northeast and southeast sections of what became the USA. IMHO, the author is a talented scholar whose other work merits my attention. A reader cannot offer higher praise for an author than that.
In the context of these basic human tendencies Shoemaker pointed out how their differences played out. In fact, oftentimes she spends as much or more time discussing their differences as their similarities.
This book was highly readable for a number of reasons. First, unlike many academic scholars Shoemaker wrote in a direct, narrative style of prose. Second, the chapters were organized into subsections to illustrate the points she tried to make. Third, her timely use of examples and/or quotations from primary sources allowed her to make her argument effectively. Finally, there were some paintings and other visual aids like an indigenous map which made the text more engaging.
Overall, I would recommend this book most highly for anyone interested in a different and informative perspective on the interactions which took place between the European colonists, the Euro American settlers, and some of the Native American tribes residing in the northeast and southeast sections of what became the USA. IMHO, the author is a talented scholar whose other work merits my attention. A reader cannot offer higher praise for an author than that.
January 18, 2013
Absolutely essential read. A real eyeopener written in an accesible style.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews