Review by Choice Review
Anthropologists have long studied how Native Americans build sustainable economies in internal colonialized situations. In the 1970s--80s, those researching ethnic art as household industries marketing to tourists and middle-class consumers found there were challenges because of the structure of the art market and its control by a series of nonnative go-betweens. In Sovereign Entrepreneurs, Lewis takes the study of artists as small business owners one step further and shows how they have overcome these problems on the eastern band of Cherokee lands in North Carolina over the last 40 years. By focusing her analysis on all small businesses and entrepreneurs in a single native community, she uncovers the challenges and successes of individual initiatives. In this fascinating study, Lewis shows how diversity can overcome the dangers of a nation's relying on one economic product--casinos--and how individual and household entrepreneurship provides stability as well as room for necessary innovation. This book is an informative case study for indigenous studies, economics, and anthropology and a must read for classes that generative discussions on policy and sovereignty at multiple levels. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. --Nancy J. Parezo, emerita, University of Arizona
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
