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Miriam Jorgensen, ed. Rebuilding Native Nations: Strategies for Governance and Development. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2007. 384 pp. Paper, $20.00.
The paucity of published research on contemporary Indian development immediately earns this edited text attention from scholars in the fields of Native and indigenous studies as well as those interested in the sovereignty efforts and expressions of "dependent domestic nations" undertaking or continuing the project of nation building. The latter could and should include leaders in Indian Country, those who work for and with them, as well as policy makers and advocates of indigenous self-determination.
Rebuilding Native Nations is the latest book to come out of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development (Joseph Kalt and Stephen Cornell, codirectors), which worked in partnership with the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy (NNI) at die University of Arizona to produce this book. Jorgensen states: "Both NNI and the Harvard Project operate on the principle that our work is not useful unless it is done in service to Native America" (xii), and I kept this key assertion as well as die subtide of the book Strategies for Governance and Development - in mind as I read and evaluated Rebuilding Native Nations.
Contributing authors primarily come to the project with backgrounds in political science, economics, and law, with emphasis on public policy. Eight of the fifteen are Native (not including the authors of the foreword and afterword, both Native); several have served in tribal government. All have considerable experience working in Indian Country in the United States...