"Scores of Native nations defend their sovereignty within the United States - to the confusion of many Americans. In this sensible, lucid, and wide-ranging book, Kathleen Duval recounts a sobering yet remarkable history of survival despite sweeping efforts to destroy Native peoples. Resourceful and determined, Native Americans have endured by resisting while adapting - ultimately to the benefit of all who now share this continent."

—Alan Taylor, author of American Republics: A Continental History, 1783-1850

"Kathleen DuVal has crafted a masterful new narrative of Indigenous North America. Drawing from extensive research, DuVal weaves centuries of Native American history into crisp and engaging stories of Indigenous power, adaptation, and resilience. Throughout her chapters, DuVal keeps women, families, and Native commoners at the center of her stories, and so readers are treated to analysis that moves beyond the examination of lives of great men and showcases the myriad ways Native people from all walks of life shaped the continent. Most impressively, even as she unearths stories from hundreds of years ago, DuVal never loses sight of the critical significance of these pasts for contemporary Native communities and for the U.S writ large. A triumph."

—Elizabeth Ellis, author of The Great Power of Small Nations

“Demonstrating that Native peoples’ collective efforts to resist colonialism and racism often depended paradoxically on asserting their distinct national identities, Native Nations provides a new way of understanding the long sweep of Native American history. Based on prodigious research, reflecting the latest scholarship, and incorporating diverse perspectives, Kathleen DuVal’s engagingly written new book reveals how Indigenous peoples’ varied strategies of presence, resistance, and endurance fundamentally shaped the governmental and social structures of the United States as we know it today.”

—Daniel K. Richter, author of Before the Revolution: America’s Ancient Pasts