The title of Vine Deloria's new book, We Talk, You Listen, is significant in that it appears to express in itself a new and prevalent attitude among Indians, and young Indians in particular, a quality of anger and self-assertion that has been dormant for a long time, for generations indeed. The New Indian, as he has been called, talks of living standards and job opportunities, education and health programs—both on and off the reservations—and he talks as never before of political action and organization. (p. 39)

In two books to date, Custer Died for Your Sins and We Talk, You Listen, Vine Deloria, Jr., has written about the Indian world, traditional and contemporary, in terms that are congenial as well as authoritative. Deloria is … a man very much in tune with contemporary Indian affairs. But in presuming to speak for the Indian in all his diversity, he...