| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Edward G. Gray. New World Babel: Languages and Nations in Early America. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1999. Pp. xiv, 185. $35.00.

This book by Edward G. Gray joins the body of literature that examines how Euro-American writings on Indians reflected more about their authors' needs and cultures than those of the peoples under scrutiny. It explores developments in the study of language to help explain changes in non-Native perceptions of Native Americans from Christopher Columbus to Henry David Thoreau. 1

Gray begins by discussing how, starting with Columbus, Europeans were fascinated by the diversity of Native American languages and the perception that language in the New World did not mark the boundaries of distinct cultures. Some saw this as proof for the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. Others, attuned to the emerging Enlightenment, saw it as showing that the lack of central authority violated natural law. But all agreed that it helped to illustrate the universal corruption of human culture since its perfect origins. . . .

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