Book Review: The Great Confusion in Indian Affairs: Native Americans and Whites in the Progressive Era

The notion that the federal government\u27s relationship with Native American nations has been chronically confused is one of the most familiar truisms in American history. Countless commentators have chronicled the ebb and flow of federal Indian policy among the wildy disparate goals of extinguishment, displacement, assimilation, and self-determination. Given the widespread acceptance of that fundamental premise, Tom Holm\u27s The Great Confusion in Indian Affairs may at first glance appear to offer only superfluous support for an already obvious point. Fortunately, however, Holm\u27s work offers a good deal more than mere reiteration, providing subtly significant new insights into the nuances of the federal government\u27s never-ending attempts to deal effectively with what was often perceived to be its Indian problem