This book presents 12 papers that proceed from the idea that Native American history in the United States and Canada is best understood not as an Indian-European cultural conflict but as an economic conflict between communal and capitalist modes of production. Three chapters are of particular educational interest. "Political Economy in Anthropology" (John H. Moore) traces the history of political economy as an academic discipline, and discusses the utility of the political-economic perspective for encouraging interdisciplinary academic approaches to the book's anthropological themes. "Learning To Labor: Native American Education in the United States, 1880-1930" (Alice Littlefield) discusses changes in vocational education in federal Indian boarding schools as the U.S. economy changed, 1880-1930, and argues that "proletarianization" better characterizes federal Indian policy aims than does assimilation. "Autonomy and Constraint: The Household Economy on a Southern Ontario Reserve" (Max J. Hedley) describes subsistence agriculture and other family economic survival strategies in the 1920s-1930s, and discusses the role of Indian youth in these strategies and their related informal education and training. Other chapters are: "The Political Economy of Lakota Consciousness" (Thomas Biolsi); "Health Patterns and Economic Underdevelopment on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, 1910-1920" (Gregory R. Campbell); "Natives and the Development of Mercantile Capitalism: A New Look at 'Opposition' in the Eighteenth-Century Fur Trade" (Bruce Alden Cox); "Symbiosis, Merger, and War: Contrasting Forms of Intertribal Relationship among Historic Plains Indians" (Patricia C. Albers); "Political Economy of the Buffalo Hide Trade: Race and Class on the Plains" (Alan M. Klein); "The Quest for Indian Development in Canada: Contrasts and Contradictions" (J. S. Frideres); "Multinational Corporate Development in the American Hinterland: The Case of the Oklahoma Choctaws" (Sandra Faiman-Silva); "How Giveaways and Pow-wows Redistribute the Means of Subsistence" (John H. Moore); and "Native North Americans and the National Question" (George P. Castile). Contains over 400 references, chapter notes, contributor profiles, and an index. (SV)