This book begins by stating that “for too many years the academic discipline has ignored the ethos and reality among Indian people” and that “most scholars writing about Indian people do so with limited understanding” (ix). After many years of thinking about this problem, historian Donald L. Fixico has developed the “Medicine Way of American Indian history, which demonstrates and explains the indigenous ethos and reality” (ix). In doing so, Call for Change adds a voice to conversations about the state of the field and its place within the historical profession. Its impact might be more profound had the author rigorously engaged particular works to illustrate its points and reimagine the field of American Indian history.

“Real” American Indian history, according to the author, is about how Native peoples have experienced history from their own perspective. Most American Indian history, however, has been written in the “First Dimension,” or by non-Indians with little understanding of American Indian communities. Over time this has resulted in a triumphant narrative of the Euro-American conquest and settlement that has been accepted by the public and mainstream academia. A “Second Dimension” of American Indian history began to emerge in the 1970s and continues to characterize present scholarship. This is a history of Indian–white relations and shared experiences that foregrounds American Indian points of view, but nonetheless undervalues the perspective of “traditional Indians.” Therefore the author calls for writing American Indian history in a “Third Dimension,” which means “researching, analyzing, and writing from the inside out, based on Indian views of history” (5–6). This Third Dimension finds Native peoples united in their following of the “Medicine Way,” a worldview that combines the physical and the metaphysical and conceives of a “natural democracy” and “circle of life” in which all human and nonhuman entities are connected and deserve mutual respect. By moving through the three dimensions of American Indian history, scholars can cross the “cultural bridge of understanding” that will allow them to better comprehend and write Native history in the Third Dimension. Oral history and understanding relationships with the Earth are especially important.

Much of the author's theorizing on American Indian history will make sense to those within the field, up to a point. Many scholars of Native peoples have confronted American Indian history in the First Dimension and worked to correct the triumphant narratives of colonization and settlement that are still too common. The most established way to do this is through the Second Dimension, or to engage the methods and institutions driven by the emergence and development of ethnohistory, an interdisciplinary field that brought Native perspectives into American Indian history. The effort to grapple with aspects of the Third Dimension has been central to this endeavor, especially for historians writing about colonial encounters. It may be true that aspects of a “traditional” Indian worldview do not always seem as relevant or applicable to scholars as the author suggests is necessary. Is this a problem? Some readers will answer no, especially those who privilege Native peoples' perspectives while writing American Indian histories that take place generations after contact. Others will find the concept of “traditional” to be inherently problematic.

A stronger case for the Medicine Way paradigm might have been made if the author had more closely explored particular works to illustrate where recent scholarship has both succeeded and fallen short. Books that support certain trends in American Indian history are mentioned in the text, but with little more commentary than “ethnohistorians have come the closest to writing in the Third Dimension” (179), or that works by Native scholars represent “histories [written] from the inside perspective after … [training] in mainstream universities” (180). The book concludes by stating that “change is needed to understand the complete past of Native people” (183). On this last point the author may be right and there is no doubt that the public and mainstream academia need to hear such a call and to rethink the broader narratives of North American history. Practitioners of American Indian history, however, the group most likely to read and think carefully about this book, will have difficulty understanding what it is exactly that the author wants them to change.