A History of Dogs in the Early Americas |  | Author: Ms. Marion Schwartz
Publisher: Yale University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $45.00
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Seller: landsawaybooks
Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 455322
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 254
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 0300069642
Dewey Decimal Number: 636.7008997
EAN: 9780300069648
ASIN: 0300069642
Publication Date: May 29, 1997
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
This enlightening book examines the fluctuating status of dogs in Native America from prehistory to the present. Drawing on chronicles, ethnographies, archaeological reports, myths, biology, and a rich ray of visual materials, Schwartz investigates views about dogs-as profane, as deities, as eaters of excrement, and as valued food.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Wonderful Survey, Little Depth November 19, 2004
Justin A. Martin (Jacksonville, Florida)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Wonderfully researched, Marion Schwartz's book, A History of Dogs in the Early Americas, examines the relationship between dog and master in the pre-Columbian period. Following an anthropologic approach, the book is primarily concerned with dogs as beasts of burden, dogs in cosmology, and dogs as gastronomic delicacy.
Schwartz's text surveys prehistoric archaeology in the Americas, noting occurrences of dogs as grave goods. Schwartz also draws on the accounts of colonial period missionaries and chroniclers who accompanied de Soto and Cortés. Schwartz's scope is overly broad and leaves the reader with repetitious gloss and little interpretation; a more thorough discussion of each early American societies' significance and worldview would lend a deeper understanding of the place of dogs within the culture.
This book may be of interest to the backyard archaeologist; however, its lack of depth and poor organization make it of little use to the serious scholar. Given the book's wholistic nature, it is likely to alienate the general, dog-loving reader.
 We prefer edible anthropologists. January 8, 1998
wolfie@netpci.com (Toto, Guam)
7 out of 11 found this review helpful
This is another boonie dog book review by Wolfie and Kansas. "A History of Dogs in the Early Americas" is an anthropological survey by Marion Schwartz, a research assistant at Yale. Despite numerous illustrations, this book is written more for academics than for dog lovers. One chapter, entitled "The Edible Dog", is particularly frightening.Other portions of this book, such as the sections noting the key roles played by dogs in creation myths, are inspirational. On the whole, though, the sections on dogs as cuisine and dogs as ritual sacrifices leave us with the perhaps politically incorrect impression that, puppy mills and leash laws notwithstanding, the Conquest did more good than harm for caninekind.
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