Encounters at the Heart of the World

Hardcover, 456 pages

English language

Published March 2014 by Hill and Wang.

ISBN:: 978-0-8090-4239-5
OCLC Number:: 846545690
ASIN:: 0809042398
Goodreads:: 17934362

We mainly know of 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—because Lewis and Clark wintered in their midst in 1804-1805. But these prosperous villagers had a rich history, and in Encounters at the Heart of the World, Elizabeth A. Fenn retrieves it, piecing together not only archeological and anthropological findings but also relevant new work in geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science. Her pathbreaking account of centuries of Mandean prosperity and productivity gives us a new perspective on early American history, a new interpretation of the American past.

By 1500, some twelve thousand Mandans were established on the northern plains, and their commercial prowess, agricultural skill, and reputation for hospitality became famous. Recent archeological discoveries show how they thrived, and then how they collapsed. The damage wrought by imported diseases such …

We mainly know of 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—because Lewis and Clark wintered in their midst in 1804-1805. But these prosperous villagers had a rich history, and in Encounters at the Heart of the World, Elizabeth A. Fenn retrieves it, piecing together not only archeological and anthropological findings but also relevant new work in geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science. Her pathbreaking account of centuries of Mandean prosperity and productivity gives us a new perspective on early American history, a new interpretation of the American past.

By 1500, some twelve thousand Mandans were established on the northern plains, and their commercial prowess, agricultural skill, and reputation for hospitality became famous. Recent archeological discoveries show how they thrived, and then how they collapsed. The damage wrought by imported diseases such as 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.

Fenn’s remarkable study of Mandan history, landscapes, and people is enriched and enlivened not only by her scientific and historical research but also by her own encounters at the heart of the world.

3 editions

Ben Waber reviewed Encounters at the Heart of the World by Elizabeth A. Fenn

An Illuminating if Incomplete History

5 stars

This is a great, albeit necessarily unsatisfyingly incomplete, history of arguably one of the most important yet poorly known indigenous cultures of North America. Fenn does an excellent job assembling the disparate sources that do exist on the Mandan in their heyday, detailing their unique nearly urban and highly commercial culture through the centuries. It's scant because written sources were non-existent until European contact, which happened exceptionally late and then only sporadically until the first few decades of the 19th century, when a smallpox epidemic felled 90% of the Mandan already decimated by various agricultural and epidemiological calamities. Using that brief window, as well as more recent oral histories and archaeological research, Fenn paints a vivid picture of the lifeways and festivals of the Mandan of the time (the Okipa is absolutely bonkers). Highly recommend

Subjects

Indians of north america, west (u.s.)
Indians of north america, social life and customs
Indians of north america, government relations

Encounters at the Heart of the World

Subjects

Lists