Theodore BrasserNative American Clothing: An Illustrated History

Ted Brasser has been studying Native American culture and clothing for 50 years, has published extensively, and is widely respected for his knowledge and experience. Most authors of similar books simply re-cycle and package old information (and images of key objects). Those authors who "research" objects at museums tend to take museum catalogue records at face value with regard to cultural and temporal attributions. Consequently their publications are full of errors-including the title mentioned by the first reviewer here. (In my book Arts of Diplomacy I discuss why old museum records are so often faulty, and describe the research done to identify "Lewis and Clark" objects at the Peabody Museum, where I am a curator).In contrast, Brasser, a former curator with extensive experience looking at museum collections around the world, spends much of his time challenging, clarifying and adding to what we know about the historic material culture of Native American peoples. This book is full of color images of garments and related cultural material-not JUST clothing (although there is plenty of that) because clothing doesn't exist in isolation! To understand design styles, material histories, and meanings it is necessary to look across forms, and to look at earlier styles in say, dresses, as well as stylistic influences from other groups. Clothing is a product of living cultures and historic changes.Because he pays attention to such things, this book presents a much more sophisticated and informed view of Native American garments than the average overview of tribal styles. I'm giving it 5 stars to compensate for the other review.

Mr. Brasser may have a history as a curator, but his knowledge is, in my opinion as a professional writer and amateur Northeastern Woodlands Indian historian and archeology/anthropology buff, woefully lacking in accuracy. I've been looking forward to finally settling in and reading this work. He incorrectly identifies items, such as calling a waist length cape a "poncho" and has little knowledge of the population of the 17th Century woodlands, saying there were only a few hundred-thousand Indians from the Canadian Maritimes south to the Carolinas. During that era, the Iroquiian nations, the Wendat and Five Nationssconfederacies alone had members equaling his guesstimate. Then there were other large tribes such as the Susquehannas, Lenape, etc., etc.He also states the the Northeastern Woodlands nations all spoke Algonquian-based languages. First, many of them differed, and he apparently forgot about other tongues such as the Iroquoian languages of the Seneca, Wendat, Mohawk, and other tribes of their confederacies. In less than 20 minutes of reading, I became disillusioned by the number of factual errors made by what other reviewers have implied was a curator with in-depth knowledge of his topic. .Even though I just had a major improvement in my reading abilities thanks to cataract surgery, I found the serif typeface used to be difficult to read due its font size and printing on coated stock with a high reflectivity factor. I spent decades as a professional editor and publisher. As such the formatting factors left much to be desired, as did minute type to identify front of book pictures and rather strange page number placement.All in all, I would rank the hardcover version as worth far less than the list price.

This book contains a large range of native pieces along with extensive historical narrative. It has very good old traditional native pieces.

A very informative book concerning native American clothing. It is greatly illustrated with excellent photos and explains why the various tribes chose what they did based on geography and what nature provided - and eventually the white invaders. I love it!

Nice historical reference. Just recently began reading it. looking forward to continuing. Illustrations are superb. Very satisfied with purchase.

This is just another coffee table book, or maybe it would fit in a high school library. The title is entirely misleading; there is precious little clothing illustrated. Lots of baskets, landscapes and material culture dominate the color pictures but if you're interested in various forms of dress for the different tribes, you'd do better to look at American Indian Art Magazine, or at other coffee table or serious books of museum collections. For me, this was a colossal waste of money.

Good books with excellent photographs ; A must reference for the collector, novice, and interested party. Would do business with again. AAAAA+++++

Beautiful book. Loving it.

Fantastic book. I bought several on the subject and this was by far the best. Richly illustrated, very informative and very very inspiring.