In the following essay, Washburn asserts that in The Nations Within, "When all is said and done, Deloria and Lytle, while not providing a practical solution to the Indian future, have laid the basis for a more mature consideration of that future by Indian tribal leaders."

In the following review, Eby discusses the commercial relationship between white America and its use of land versus the Indians' veneration of nature as presented by Deloria in We Talk, You Listen.

In the following review, Cornell traces the policy issues addressed in Deloria's American Indian in the Twentieth Century.

In the following review, Abbey asserts that in Custer Died For Your Sins, Deloria "writes with much humor and even sympathy for what he believes to be the white Americans' pathetic inability to feel and understand the true nature of the situation we are living in."

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...

A number of American Indians have wanted to write a book like [Custer Died For Your Sins], or have threatened to. But while others dreamed, procrastinated, or found other outlets for their energies, Vine Deloria, Jr. … persevered and has produced a witty, provocative, and sometimes crotchety interpretation of the past and current state of affairs of American Indians. Written for the general public, this is nevertheless an Indian book and, as such, contains much of significance for Indians and non-Ind...

In the following review, Kerr praises American Indians, American Justice as a highly readable examination of the United States federal government's policies concerning American Indians and their effects on Native American governmental and judicial institutions.

[The differences in goals and methods of black militancy and red nationalism is a subject fraught with confusion and misunderstanding for the general public, both black and white.] Deloria's very equivocation as to any mutual relevance of the red and the black movements [in Custer Died for Your Sins] is characteristic of the thinking of many young Indians and thus informative. Another chapter—that on Indian humor—would have elucidated the Indian mood very well for the average, uninforme...

In the following review, Colbert asserts that the essays in Deloria's American Indian Policy in the Twentieth Century are educational and informative.

In the following excerpt, the critic states that the essays contained in Deloria's American Indian Policy in the Twentieth Century "contain valuable information of interest to scholars and general readers alike."

Among his people Vine Deloria Jr. has achieved a status somewhat similar to that of Sitting Bull's leadership of the Sioux tribes a century ago. Deloria is not a warrior ("The time for playing cowboys and Indians is over," he said recently) but is more the strategist—the thinker and the planner…. What Deloria wants is affirmative action by the U.S. Congress to define Indian tribes as smaller nations to be left alone to run their own affairs…. "Behind the Trai...

[We Talk, You Listen: New Tribes, New Turf] is another product of an era in which advocates are being heard for black power, women's lib, senior power, unionization of teachers, gay liberation, consumer's rights, and unification of higher education. It is also observable that some of these advocates wish their audience simply to accept their version of the situation without being given the opportunity of examining it further. In common with these, Vine Deloria, Jr. gives the reader a view of I...

In the following review, Whisker asserts that the essays in A Sender of Words are in honor of John G. Neihardt and his importance to Amerindian studies, rather than a critique of his work.

In the following review, the critic praises Deloria's humor and hopefulness in his presentation of the American government's broken promises to the Indians in Custer Died for Your Sins.

Christ Jesus' guidelines have been judged impractical because difficult to obey. The falterings of his followers have been taken as proof enough that the Sermon on the Mount is too lofty to apply to real people. But Christianity persists, in spite of its abusers. It survives all the perilous times. The Kingdom of God is not conquered, damaged, or displaced. It is always safely within—as Jesus said it would be—within consciousness centering more on God, less on self.

[In Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties Deloria argues that] Indian tribes are, or should be under treaty law, semi-autonomous and self-determining communities…. The usual claim of "pragmatists" in Indian policy today is that it is too late to redress the grievances of the past. Indians are too few, too politically and economically impotent, too little endowed with the capacity for self-improvement. Deloria chooses to counter these arguments with a comparative study of the political, ec...

His native viewpoint is the unique strength of Deloria's writing. He can explain how the world appears to those who were here on this continent countless centuries before Europeans arrived. The world does not appear as an arena for struggle between humanity and nature, as the Christian creation story suggests. Death is not something evil that must be conquered, as the Christian resurrection may imply. Religion for the native people has never been "other worldly" but intimately tied to t...

If ["Custer Died for your Sins: an Indian Manifesto"] is indicative of Deloria's methods, he's more interested in results than in being tactful. Nauseated by the traditional Indian image, he asserts the worth if not the dignity of the redman and blasts the political, social, and religious forces that perpetuate the Little Big Horn and wigwam stereotyping of his people. Admittedly and intentionally he offends the people from whom help might come—Congress, anthropologists, a...

[Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto] is the most ambitious and most successful overview of contemporary American Indian affairs and aspirations I have ever read, whether "contemporary" is defined as the 1950's, 1960's, or the beginning of the 1970's…. Neither the range of scholars who view the Indian from the confines of their own academic perspectives nor the areal specialists are likely to be satisfied with Deloria's coverage, but this is a dang...

In what is essentially a legal and political history [Indians of the Pacific Northwest: From the Coming of the White Man to the Present Day], Deloria introduces the tribes of the Puget Sound region with an eye toward their historic and current victimization and their efforts at fighting back. He makes known the complex, fish-based economy that operated before the coming of the white man…. Deloria calls close attention to a series of treaties forged in the mid-19th century when Washington became a U.S...

In his Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration of Independence …, Deloria draws together the arguments for autonomous status for the Indians. It is not an objective account, for Deloria is clearly promoting a cause. The book, too, has a good many factual errors, and it is frequently inconsistent in what it proposes. The author, moreover, has a hard time deciding just what status he is advocating for the Indians. Is it to be "international status," "quasi-protec...

More than any other author, Indian or white, dealing with the topic of current Indian affairs, Vine Deloria has challenged and stimulated the general public and the academic community. The impact of his Custer died for your sins …, We talk, you listen …, and God is red … attests to that. [Behind the trail of broken treaties] is equally provocative. Deloria calls for government adoption of the "Twenty Points" of the caravan of Indians known as the Trail of Broken Treaties t...

[Mr. Deloria] is an Indian with an ironic sense of humor and an urgent message for the world today: to survive, it needs the flexibility of the tribe and the tribal viewpoint. (pp. 281-82) In ["We Talk, You Listen" we have] a discussion interwoven of ecology, economics, politics, sociology, anthropology, history, and religion, all relating to man's sad plight today in which he faces fairly imminent extinction unless he drastically changes his way of life. Instead of the "liberal ...

[Deloria fills a gap with Indians of the Pacific Northwest] by describing the impact of rapid white settlement on the Puget Sound and Washington Coast tribes, which are often neglected in history books in favor of the potlatch and totem pole tribes farther north. The chapters which relate—in exhaustive detail—the long uphill battle waged to retain treaty-guaranteed fishing rights and maintain tribal identity may cause reader interest to lag. However, Deloria has a keen understanding of Indian ...

[In Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties] Deloria argues effectively that the best solution to the "Indian problem," for Indians and the federal government alike, is to honor old treaties and to develop a new treaty relationship which gives tribes the status of quasi-international independence (with the U.S. acting as protector). The legal and moral arguments are set into historical developments; and the major objections to restoration of tribal sovereignty are countered with reason and with ex...

If you are interested in savoring the emotional tone (as well as listening to some of the crucial ideas) of the emerging Indian protest movement, you will find [Custer Died for Your Sins] useful and important. Indian resentment toward white men and white society is set forth with memorable vividness…. But this book is no mere negative diatribe. In it we find set forth the essence of a program for rehabilitating Indian society, perhaps even for saving white society in the bargain….

[The Indian Affair is a] short, critical essay by a noted Indian author on the despoiling and exploiting of the American Indian by individuals, federal agencies, and corporations, all aided by Christian missionaries. Yet, churches are cited for educating the Indians when no one else would, and some leading government figures are credited because of their pro-Indian efforts. Due to its brevity the work offers little in the way of detail. It should serve, however, as a good general introduction to the topic f...

[We Talk, You Listen: New Tribes, New Turf is an] argumentative rather than informative book…. [The author] adopts a controversial style reminiscent of his forefathers' fighting style: avoid pitched battles, loose a shower of arrows, and dart off. The Parthians fought the Romans this way, the Turks the Crusaders; though it is not magnificent, it is war. Mr. Deloria's paleface readers are not persuaded or enlightened; they are simply attacked. Here and there, Mr. Deloria seems to be star...

Deloria brings into focus the moods and habitat of the contemporary Indian as seen by a Standing Rock Sioux, not by a research anthropologist or a jobber in the basketry trades. He peels away layers of tinsel and feathers heaped upon the Indian by misinformed whites (beginning with Columbus), and he reveals an uncanny ability for impaling them on the fine points of their own illogic. Cecil Eby, "Tonto Was an Uncle Tomahawk," in Book World—The Washington Post (© 1970 ...