Savagism and Civilization

First published in 1953, revised in 1964, and presented here with a new foreword by Arnold Krupat and new postscript by the author, Roy Harvey Pearce's Savagism and Civilization is a classic in the genre of history of ideas. Examining the political pamphlets, missionaries' reports, anthropologists' accounts, and the drama, poetry, and novels of the 18th and early 19th centuries, Professor Pearce traces the conflict between the idea of the noble savage and the will to Christianize the heathen and appropriate their land, which ended with the near extermination of Native American culure.

FOREWORD: Arnold Krupat 
PREFACE 

PART 1: Antecedents and Origins, 1609-1777
    I Spirituals and Temporals: The Indian in Colonial Civilization 
    
PART 2: The Life and Death of the American Savage, 1777-1851 
    II A Melancholy Fact: The Indian in American Life 
    III Character and Circumstance: The Idea of Savagism 
    IV The Zero of Human Society: The Idea of the Savage 
    V An Impassable Gulf: The Social and Historical Image 
    VI The Virtues of Nature: The Image in Drama and Poetry
    VII Red Gifts and White: The Image in Fiction 
    
PART 3: Afterthoughts, 1851- 
    VIII After a Century of Dishonor: The Idea of Civilization 
    
POSTSCRIPT
INDEX