Patrick Frazier

This is a decent local history of Stockbridge, Massachusetts (long before Arlo Guthrie went to Alice's restaurant), but a completely inadequate American Indian history. When it comes to the Mohicans (or Mahicans), all Frazier has to offer is the unsurprising insight that they were real people, not invented by James Fenimore Cooper. Although his aim is ambitious, he ultimately fails to even attempt to interpret, say, Mohican diplomacy — he keeps calling their speeches "cryptic" — much show more less to deal with the onset of alcoholism and how it was resisted, a subject he seems squeamish about. Sometimes he is as patronizing as his colonial sources, e.g. describing the first Stockbridge missionary as the Indians' "shepherd." Even allowing that this book was a trail blazer for its time, I was disappointed in it. Read the book if you want to know about Stockbridge, but don't expect to learn very much about the Mohicans. show less