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Social Change in the Southwest, 1350-1880

Thomas D. Hall

xvi, 288 pages, 12 maps, 6 x 9
Paper ISBN 978-0-7006-0497-5, $15.95

Book Cover ImageThis volume traces the evolution and interaction of Native American groups, Hispanic soldiers and settlers, and American pioneers--and the clash of national powers--in the Southwest. Against the backdrop of global and regional processes, Hall chronicles the way previously autonomous groups were transformed into ethnic minorities, some groups were destroyed, and others were assimilated and survived.

"A ground-breaking volume that merits serious consideration by all scholars who are interested in understanding the development of the American Southwest."--American Anthropologist

"This book will have an impact on Mexican and American national histories. . . . Scholars and history enthusiasts of the Borderlands and the American West will benefit greatly from it. Instructors who teach either of these fields should not fail to assign it; their students will be richer for having read it."--Journal of American History

"This is an impressive book. It should be evaluated within two genres. The first is other histories of frontier interaction in the U.S. Southwest. In this context it is very clear that Hall's book will replace earlier works as the standard. The second genre is now a large corpus of studies that closely examine the processes of incorporation and peripheralization into the expanding Europe-centered world-system as they occur within a particular region. . . . In this context Hall's is certainly one of the very best."--Christopher Chase Dunn in Contemporary Sociology

"This sweeping survey of social change in the Southwest deserves to reach a wide audience. It is a rigorous and provocative interdisciplinary inquiry. . . . A bold and important book."--Peter Iverson, author of Carlos Montezuma and the Changing World of American Indians and The Navajo Nation

"Anthropologists have a lot to learn from this historically-oriented sociology. Hall introduces a serious anthropological perspective into the study of the Southwest, and avoids the common error of beginning his analysis of the region in the midstream of modernity."--Eric R. Wolf, author of Europe and the People without History

"Hall does not allow generalizations and theories to overshadow the interesting story of Pueblos, Navajos, Apaches, Comanches, Spaniards, Mexicans, and Anglo-Americans in the Southwest."--Hispanic American Historical Review

"A multidisciplinary study which includes considerable insights from geography and athropology as well as history and sociology."--Social Science Quarterly

"Hall's historical portrayals of change in the southwestern United States are both fascinating and revealing."--American Journal of Sociology

"One of the most important seminal histories of the Southwest to emerge in recent years. It will undoubtedly trigger considerable discussion and argument. A must read for all those interested in the Southwest, whatever their discipline may be."--Journal of Political and Military Sociology

THOMAS D. HALL is Lester M. Jones Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at DePauw University.