First published in 1956, this book traces the progress of the Cherokee people, beginning with their native social and political establishments, and gradually unfurling to include their assimilation into “white civilization.” Henry Thompson Malone deals mainly with the social developments of the Cherokees, analyzing the processes by which they became one of the most civilized Native American tribes. He discusses the work of missionaries, changes in social customs, government, education, language, and the bilingual newspaper The Cherokee Phoenix. The book explains how the Cherokees developed their own hybrid culture in the mountainous areas of the South by inevitably following in the white man's footsteps while simultaneously holding onto the influences of their ancestors.

Cherokees in Transition offers a comprehensive description from an eco-historical perspective of the multitudinous changes that occurred within the Cherokee cultural-environmental system during the period preceding the American Revolution.

Theda Perdue examines the roles and responsibilities of Cherokee women during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a time of intense cultural change. While building on the research of earlier historians, she develops a uniquely complex view of the effects of contact on Native gender relations, arguing that Cherokee conceptions of gender persisted long after contact. Maintaining traditional gender roles actually allowed Cherokee women and men to adapt to new circumstances and adopt new industries and practices.

"We believe by blood only," said a Cherokee resident of Oklahoma, speaking to reporters in 2007 after voting in favor of the Cherokee Nation constitutional amendment limiting its membership. In an election that made headlines around the world, a majority of Cherokee voters chose to eject from their tribe the descendants of the African American freedmen Cherokee Indians had once enslaved. Because of the unique sovereign status of Indian nations in the United States, legal membership in an Indian nation can have real economic benefits. In addition to money, the issues brought forth in this election have racial and cultural roots going back before the Civil War. Race and the Cherokee Nation examines how leaders of the Cherokee Nation fostered a racial ideology through the regulation of interracial marriage. By defining and policing interracial sex, nineteenth-century Cherokee lawmakers preserved political sovereignty, delineated Cherokee identity, and established a social hierarchy. Moreover, Cherokee conceptions of race and what constituted interracial sex differed from those of blacks and whites. Moving beyond the usual black/white dichotomy, historian Fay A. Yarbrough places American Indian voices firmly at the center of the story, as well as contrasting African American conceptions and perspectives on interracial sex with those of Cherokee Indians. For American Indians, nineteenth-century relationships produced offspring that pushed racial and citizenship boundaries. Those boundaries continue to have an impact on the way individuals identify themselves and what legal rights they can claim today.

An astonishing untold story from the nineteenth century—a “riveting…engrossing…‘American Epic’” (The Wall Street Journal) and necessary work of history that reads like Gone with the Wind for the Cherokee. “A vigorous, well-written book that distills a complex history to a clash between two men without oversimplifying” (Kirkus Reviews), Blood Moon is the story of the feud between two rival Cherokee chiefs from the early years of the United States through the infamous Trail of Tears and into the Civil War. Their enmity would lead to war, forced removal from their homeland, and the devastation of a once-proud nation. One of the men, known as The Ridge—short for He Who Walks on Mountaintops—is a fearsome warrior who speaks no English, but whose exploits on the battlefield are legendary. The other, John Ross, is descended from Scottish traders and looks like one: a pale, unimposing half-pint who wears modern clothes and speaks not a word of Cherokee. At first, the two men are friends and allies who negotiate with almost every American president from George Washington through Abraham Lincoln. But as the threat to their land and their people grows more dire, they break with each other on the subject of removal. In Blood Moon, John Sedgwick restores the Cherokee to their rightful place in American history in a dramatic saga that informs much of the country’s mythic past today. Fueled by meticulous research in contemporary diaries and journals, newspaper reports, and eyewitness accounts—and Sedgwick’s own extensive travels within Cherokee lands from the Southeast to Oklahoma—it is “a wild ride of a book—fascinating, chilling, and enlightening—that explains the removal of the Cherokee as one of the central dramas of our country” (Ian Frazier). Populated with heroes and scoundrels of all varieties, this is a richly evocative portrait of the Cherokee that is destined to become the defining book on this extraordinary people.

Nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah yearns to escape his hometown of Cherokee, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. When a summer job at Asheville's luxurious Grove Park Inn and Resort brings him one step closer to escaping the hills that both cradle and suffocate him, he sees it as an opportunity. The experience introduces him to the beautiful and enigmatic Essie Stamper—a young Cherokee woman who is also working at the inn and dreaming of a better life. With World War II raging in Europe, the resort is the temporary home of Axis diplomats and their families, who are being held as prisoners of war. A secret room becomes a place where Cowney and Essie can escape the white world of the inn and imagine their futures free of the shadows of their families' pasts. Outside of this refuge, however, racism and prejudice are never far behind, and when the daughter of one of the residents goes missing, Cowney finds himself accused of abduction and murder. Even As We Breathe invokes the elements of bone, blood, and flesh as Cowney navigates difficult social, cultural, and ethnic divides. Betrayed by the friends he trusted, he begins to unearth deeper mysteries as he works to prove his innocence and clear his name. This richly written debut novel explores the immutable nature of the human spirit and the idea that physical existence, with all its strife and injustice, will not be humanity's lasting legacy.