In a preface to his engrossing and eloquent work [in Many Smokes, Many Moons, Highwater] gives an example of fundamental differences in understanding between native Americans and whites. Subsequent chapters pinpoint historic and cultural events to express the seldom-heard Indian view…. Sad to say, it includes an almost unbroken account of whites' betrayals of a conquered people. (p. 65)

The subtitle [of Many Smokes, Many Moons: A Chronology of American Indian History Through Indian Art] is misleading. Handsomely designed, this really consists [more] of archaeological, [than of] historical snippets…. A typical early sequence notes that the Pinto Basin culture, based on an economy of fish and shellfish, dominated the Far West around 7000 B.C.…. After 1492 the coming of Europeans and the subsequent great changes and disasters are seen (sometimes) from the Indians' viewpoint—but not as eloquently or informatively as in Nabakov's Native American Testimony…. As for American Indian art as a subject for comment, Highwater makes passing mention of several developments but with no apparent system or sense of proportion; political observations are similarly sketchy and unconnected. The pictures as a group do not make this a notable art book; neither is it a coherent history or a particularly pointed reminder of the human diversity Highwater emphasizes in his introduction. (p. 813)

Kirkus Reviews (copyright © 1978 The Kirkus Service, Inc.), August 1, 1978.