The early parts of the book focus on the past, and in the latter chapters King brings his focus into the present.

King tells us that this book “has been a work-in-progress for most of my adult life” (p. 267). It does not serve to soften the blow of the stories he tells, but rather to drive home to the reader the awful ironies and injustices in the historical and modern treatment of Native peoples by Euro-American and Euro-Canadian purveyors of power. The author’s renowned wit is on full display throughout the narrative. King dwells on both history itself and the way it has been presented to the US and Canadian publics. Instead, the book is the author’s reflections about Native history in the northern two nations of North America. King points out that he substituted “account” for “history” in his subtitle when his son “pointed out that if I was going to call the book a history, I would be obliged to pay attention to the demands of scholarship” (p. x). Thomas King, with The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America, has written an engaging and accessible book that has the possibility of awakening curiosity, provoking outrage, and garnering sympathy among readers with little or no such knowledge. Most Americans’ knowledge of Native American histories, cultures, and circumstances is abysmal. Reviewed by Dave Beck (University of Montana) Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013. The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America.

The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King