The Early Years of Native American Art History: The Politics of Scholarship and Collecting is a collection of essays dealing with the development of Native American art history as a discipline rather than with particular art works or artists. It focuses on the early anthropologist, museum curators, dealers, and collectors, and on the multiple levels of understanding and misunderstanding, appropriation and reappropriation, that characterized their transactions. The essays examine major figures, art forms, institutions, and events of the early years when Native American artworks were first collected, studied, and displayed.