A seminal, exemplary and pioneering contribution to the scholarly field, a new study by a history professor at Loyola Marymount University, in conjunction with ongoing scholarship by other historians, is beginning to transform how historians view Indian life in the city. In Reimagining Indian Country: Native American Migration and Identity in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles, Nicolas G. Rosenthal presents his revisionist work in six chapters: “Settling into the City: American Indian Migration and Urbanization, 1900–1945,” “Representing Indians: American Indian Performance and Activism in Urban America,” “From Americanization to Self-Determination: The Federal Urban Relocation Program,” “Postindustrial Urban Indians: Life and Work in the Postwar City,” “Being Indian in the City: American Indian Urban Organizations,” and “Grassroots Indian Activism: The Red Power Movement.” A concise summation of urban Indian life in the late twentieth century and the first years of the twenty-first concludes the volume. “In the end,” Rosenthal argues, “it is Indian people who have created an Indian Country” (168). Rosenthal makes a central point about Indian urbanization. Scholars have too often disempowered Indians based on their own assumptions about the impact of urban life. Rosenthal argues convincingly that Los Angeles became a dynamic place marked by indigenous self-determination. Rather than disappear, Indians have found new ways to appear. They saw tomorrow not as a problem but as a challenge.

One of the real strengths of the book may be found in its portrayal of Indian Los Angeles in regard to survival, adaptation, and ultimate prosperity. Some readers may be surprised to see the University of North Carolina Press as the publisher of this volume. However, those familiar with the ongoing work of editor Mark Simpson-Vos at the press will not be. Simpson-Vos's commitment to publishing excellent work relating to race and identity in American life has been noteworthy for a number of years. William Bauer's study of Indian labor in California, Malinda Maynor Lowery's examination of the Lumbees in the Jim Crow South, and Cathleen Cahill's analysis of the US Indian Service exemplify this commitment. In addition, the University of North Carolina Press, together with the University of Arizona Press, the University of Minnesota Press, and Oregon State University Press, has also established New Directions in Indigenous Studies, a series promising to be a vital force in the field of Native American history. Nicolas Rosenthal's book is one of the first to be published in this series.