Invisible Natives: Myth & Identity in the American Western

Cornell University Press, 2002.

Armando Jose Prats

This book casts a critical eye on the representation of Native Americans in the Western film since the genre's beginnings. Armando Jose Prats shows the ways in which film reflects cultural transformations in the course of America's historical encounter with "the Indian." He also explores the relation between the myth of conquest and American history. Among the films he discusses at length are Northwest Passage, Stagecoach, The Searchers, Hombre, Hondo, Ulzana's Raid, The Last of the Mohicans, and Dances with Wolves.