For the past 20 years I have traveled annually to Santa Fe to attend anthropology conferences and enjoy the landscape, the people and the cultural sites of northern New Mexico. No trip is complete without a visit to the School for Advanced Research Press (SAR) book room to see their latest publications.  During my most recent trip in February 2015 I purchased a volume entitled "Indian Policies in the Americas, from Columbus to Collier and Beyond" (SAR Press, 2014) by  William Y. Adams.  As I read Chapters 1-8 on colonial governments and post colonial programs in Latin America I was rather impressed with the way the author tied various economic, social, political and ideological threads together.   However, once I reached Chapter 9- The Canadian Programs, which involved content that I am more familiar with, I realized that the book was deficient on many levels, if not downright offensive at times.

Early in Chapter 9, Adams asserts, "Canada has remained technically a British dependency to the present day, and, consequently its Indian policies cannot stricly be called 'postcolonial' " (p. 131).  The discussion that follows is filled with incorrect statements, faulty assumptions, and a near complete lack of information from the past 25 years.  There is no mention of the residential schools as an instrument of assimilation, nor the related developments including the Government of Canada apology to school survivors and their families, the Residential Schools Settlement Act, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  The author has minimal understanding of the Constitution Act of 1982, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, and at no time does he mention land claims and treaty negotitations,  modern treaties, nor the achievements of Indigenous organizations and the "Idle No More" Movement.

This volume contrasts with the many other excellent books that SAR Press has published over the decades.