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Bibliographic Information
- Title
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Encounters at the heart of the world : a history of the Mandan people
First Edition
- Author
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Fenn, Elizabeth A. (Elizabeth Anne), 1959-
- Publisher:
- Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
- Pub date:
- 2014.
- Pages:
- xix, 456 pages :
- ISBN:
- 9780809042395
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Item info:
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1 copy available in
Adult nonfiction shelves.
1 copy total in all locations.
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Holdings
305.897 FEN
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1
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Adult non-fic hardcover
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Adult nonfiction shelves
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All content
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Enriched Content
Encounters at the heart of the world : a history of the Mandan people
First Edition
Fenn, Elizabeth A. (Elizabeth Anne), 1959-
Quick Links
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MARC Record
Encounters at the heart of the world : a history of the Mandan people
First Edition
Fenn, Elizabeth A. (Elizabeth Anne), 1959-
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Personal Author:
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Fenn, Elizabeth A. (Elizabeth Anne), 1959-
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Title:
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Encounters at the heart of the world : a history of the Mandan people / Elizabeth A. Fenn.
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Edition:
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First Edition
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Physical description:
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xix, 456 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
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Contents:
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Discovering the heart of the world. Migrations: The making of the Mandan people ; Contacts: Villages and newcomers ; Earthwork: The substance of daily life ; Connections: Sustained European contact begins -- Inventions and reinventions. Customs: The spirits of daily life ; Upheavals: Eighteenth-century transformations ; Scourge: The smallpox of 1781 -- At the heart of many worlds. Convergences: Forces beyond the horizon ; Hosts: The Mandans receive Lewis and Clark ; Corn: The fuel of Plains commerce -- New adversities. Sheheke: The metamorphosis of a chief ; Reorientation: The United States and the Upper Missouri ; Visitations: Rats, steamboats, and the Sioux ; Decimation: "The smallpox has broke out".
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Summary:
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Encounters at the Heart of the World concerns the Mandan Indians, iconic Plains people whose teeming, busy towns on the upper Missouri River were for centuries at the center of the North American universe. We know of them mostly because Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804-1805 with them, but why don't we know more? Who were they really? Elizabeth A. Fenn retrieves their history by piecing together important new discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science. By 1500, more than twelve thousand Mandans were established on the northern Plains, and their commercial prowess, agricultural skills, and reputation for hospitality became famous. Recent archaeological discoveries show how they thrived, and then how they collapsed. The damage wrought by imported diseases like smallpox and the havoc caused by the arrival of horses and steamboats were tragic for the Mandans, yet, as Fenn makes clear, their sense of themselves as a people with distinctive traditions endured.
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Subject term:
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Mandan Indians--History.
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Subject term:
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Mandan Indians--Government relations.
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Subject term:
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Mandan Indians--Social life and customs.