Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ucla-cs.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!mtuxo!mtunh!mtung!mtunf!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!trwrba!cepu!ucla-cs!reiher From: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP Newsgroups: net.books Subject: Re: Black Robe Message-ID: <6277@ucla-cs.ARPA> Date: Mon, 8-Jul-85 15:52:44 EDT Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.6277 Posted: Mon Jul 8 15:52:44 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 10:14:03 EDT References: <3015@decwrl.UUCP> Reply-To: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (Peter Reiher) Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Lines: 24 Summary: I haven't read "Black Robe", but Francis Parkman wrote an interesting series of histories of the French and English in the New World, one of which deals specifically with the Jesuits. (An earlier one deals with, among other things, the even earlier contacts with the Indians in what is today Canada.) Parkman, who wrote in the mid to late 19th century, isn't totally free from bias, but is a great deal more evenhanded than might be expected. Actually, he shows more bias against the Roman Catholic Jesuits than against the Indians. He writes very well (though his books are fairly long). His portrait of the Indians of the Northeastern part of the continent sounds a great deal like Moore's. They were largely warlike, very cruel, sometimes surprisingly acquisitive and sometimes ridiculously generous. An interesting observation by Parkman is their vague and changeable religion, which, in Parkman's description, doesn't sound much like Ken's thumbnail version of Moore's description. The best edition of Parkman I've seen is the two volume Library of America edition in hardback. The books are $25-$30 each, but of very high quality. I don't know if these works of Parkman are available in paperback, but a good college or city library should have copies of them. -- Peter Reiher reiher@ucla-cs.arpa soon to be reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU {...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher