Christian McMillen's examination of US v. Santa Fe Railroad—in which the Supreme Court found that Hualapai aboriginal occupancy meant that the railroad had been wrongfully granted land by the federal government—characterizes the case as a pervasive shift in the interactions between indigenous communities and the legal system. McMillen argues that the process of gathering and shaping the evidence and arguments for the Hualapai claim, and its eventual success, altered how Native Americans represented land claims within the legal system, changed the narration of American Indian history, and continues to provide legal foundation for indigenous land claims across the globe. The work done by tribal members and lawyers for the case also led, he claims, to the “birth of ethnohistory”—a discipline that uses historical and anthropological sources and methodologies to investigate cultural change over time.

Part I provides background for the eventual court case and covers Hualapai origins and history: the complex history of interactions between the railroad, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Hualapai tribe over the land in question; the cultural milieu of the time regarding Native peoples, the Hualapai, and property rights; and tribal grassroots efforts to build the Hualapai case. Chapter eight, which presents a discussion of the ties between U.S. Indian Law and indigenous land claim court decisions in former British colonies, will be of particular interest to those who are considering indigenous land claim litigation outside the United States. Part II details the progression of the Hualapai land claim through the U.S. legal system, and explores the connection between the Hualapai claim and the creation of ethnohistory as a discipline.

The narrative shines when describing how tribal efforts to gather and shape historical evidence interacted with the realities of the legal system and federal power structures—McMillen has an impressive ability to find and follow the threads that led to a successful historical narrative of Hualapai land title. Further, he cogently delineates connections between U.S. Federal Indian law and indigenous land claim cases worldwide.

The text's limitations reflect the realities of the source material—the Bureau of Indian Affairs' labyrinthine interactions with railroad operatives, state politicians, and tribal community members can be difficult to follow. Some chapters reflect the unevenness of existing source material as the Hualapai's role inexplicably fades, or as transitions between Hualapai, the federal courts, and the international context become awkward. McMillen backs away from fully theorizing concepts such as masculinity, citizenship, modernity, or what it means to “play Indian.” The last chapter leaves us wondering why this decision could be reached—theoretically, practically, and politically—by this court.

These, however, are rare lapses in a fascinating and rigorous work on twentieth-century Native American History. Scholars exploring the history of U.S. academia, its involvement in the legal system, and the disciplinary emergence of ethnohistory will find rich material here. This book is a must-read for those studying aboriginal land claims across the globe, for by the end McMillen provides convincing evidence that, “Wherever and whenever indigenous land claims are litigated the shadow of the Hualapai case falls over the proceedings.”