Examines the history of Native tribes in America, focusing on the complicated modern cultural decline and the slow disintegration of tribal lands. Written as part history part memoir, the Ojibwe author discusses his observations of the tribal experience all over the country and how the forced assimilation has affected Native identity. Explores the actions of Native tribes to fight back against cultural appropriation, destruction, and assimilation during the transformative period between 1890 through the modern day.

Prologue -- Part 1. Narrating the apocalypse : 10,000 BCE-1890 -- Part 2. Purgatory : 1891-1934 -- Part 3. Fighting life : 1914-1945 -- Part 4. Moving on up--termination and relocation : 1945-1970 -- Part 5. Becoming Indian : 1970-1990 -- Part 6. Boom City--tribal capitalism in the twenty-first century -- Part 7. Digital Indians : 1990-2018 -- Epilogue.