The Nature of Empires and the Empires of Nature

Indigenous Peoples and the Great Lakes Environment

Karl S. Hele, editor

Indigenous Studies

Book Description

Drawing on themes from John MacKenzie’s Empires of Nature and the Nature of Empires (1997), this book explores, from Indigenous or Indigenous-influenced perspectives, the power of nature and the attempts by empires (United States, Canada, and Britain) to control it. It also examines contemporary threats to First Nations communities from ongoing political, environmental, and social issues, and the efforts to confront and eliminate these threats to peoples and the environment. It becomes apparent that empire, despite its manifestations of power, cannot control or discipline humans and nature. Essays suggest new ways of looking at the Great Lakes watershed and the peoples and empires contained within it.

About Karl S. Hele

Karl S. Hele, a member of the Garden River First Nation community of Anishinaabeg, is an associate professor and the director of First Peoples Studies at Concordia University. He is the editor of Lines Drawn upon the Water: First Nations and the Great Lakes Borders and Borderlands (WLU Press, 2008).

Table of Contents

Related interest

Indigenous studies

International relations

North American studies

Political science

By the same editor

Lines Drawn upon the Water: First Nations and the Great Lakes Borders and Borderlands, Karl S. Hele, editor