Books published by publisher Smithsonian Institution

Describes the prehistory, history, and cultures of the aboriginal people of North America who lived in the Subarctic culture area, defined as extending from the coast of Labrador on the Atlantic Ocean to Cook Inlet and beyond on the Pacific. Contains copyrighted material.This volume is part of the Smithsonian Institution’s Handbook of North American Indians series, the ultimate resource for Native American history across various regions of North America. The set is intended to give an encyclopedic summary of what is know about the prehistory, history, and cultures of the aboriginal peoples of North America north of the urban civilizations of central Mexico.

“The photographs in this book focus on the people—from midway artists to roustabouts, from performers and their families to the audiences who watch them each night—who create the magic of the circus. Rogala’s work presents the highs and lows of circus life with a powerful combination of documentary pragmatism and empathy that conveys day-to-day details with a sense of wonder. Her rich black-and-white images follow light and shadow (and dust) from set up to rehearsal to performance, with color photography underscoring the drama of a red tent against a clear blue sky or the flash of sequins under the spotlight…. Dynamism and a spirit of collaboration are at the heart of circus life, animate Rogala’s archive, and are central to scholarship at the Smithsonian.” (From the introduction) Nearly two decades after Dawn Rogala’s time behind the scenes at America’s circuses, Dawn Rogala donated her photography archive to the National Museum of American History. The Rogala Collection is the basis for Rogala and colleagues David Haberstich and Shannon Perich to combine in one volume their complementary expertise in photography. Rogala’s essay revisits her time as a young photographer, documenting day-to-day struggles and triumphs of the workers who create a world of wonder for the rest of us. Haberstich reviews the history of documentary photography with an emphasis on depictions of people and their work, placing Rogala’s photographs in the context of the history of traveling societies and immigrant groups. Perich explores the changing roles and relationships between photography and the circus, both of which matured amid industrialized economy, and discusses the Rogala Collection’s place in a long history of circus photography.

This book is dedicated to Michael Gannon and explicitly updates his 1965 The Cross in the Sand but views the subject from a different perspective: Where Gannon focused on the mission effort from the missionaries' point of view, Jerald T. Milanich is interested in the way Florida missions affected and were affected by the southeastern Indians they attempted to convert. In eight chapters he outlines the problem of the "lost" missions and the archaeology that has rediscovered them; describes the indigenous peoples of Florida at the time of contact with Europeans; recounts the major events of Spanish exploration; describes early Jesuit missions that failed; introduces the Franciscan missions that succeeded; provides detailed descriptions of Indian life in the mission settlements; traces significant Indian resistance to colonization and missionization; and finally recounts the collapse of the mission system under the inexorable onslaught of English attacks.

Born of the linguistic fascination of a noted paleontologist, Composition of Scientific Words includes a brief introduction to the history and elementary structure of English, Greek, and Latin, followed by a guide for the formulation of technical terms. The main selection, the lexicon, is an alphabetical list of key words. It gives their synonyms and cognates in English, Latin, and Greek, as well as occasional additions from among thirty-eight other languages. This section is a storehouse of fact and lore on the derivation of both everyday and technical terms. Numerous cross-references make the book fully accessible.

In Canada alone, the boreal forest (also called the taiga) covers more than 1.5 million square miles, fully one-third of the country and 20 percent of the entire North American continent. Terminating to the north with the treeless tundra, this region is inhabited and utilized by indigenous people and is home to unique populations of plants and animals found nowhere else on the planet. J. David Henry challenges the perception of the boreal forest as an "economic wasteland" by explaining how economically and ecologically valuable it is. He begins by answering some common questions about the region and explains its intricate geology. An in-depth examination follows of three factors that play an enormous role in shaping the complex life of the boreal forest: snow, forest fires, and peatlands. Henry looks at the dynamics of the region's vegetation and the evolution of its animals, and discusses the fascinating ten-year predator-prey cycle of snowshoe hares and Canadian lynx, one of the most famous examples of ecological interconnection. In Canada's boreal forest, loggers have clear cut an area the size of Great Britain. The final portion of the book examines initiatives from Scandinavia and Finland in order to offer alternatives to large-scale logging and mining, suggesting how humans can live and work in the boreal forest in a sustainable and responsible manner.