Books by Robert J. Miller

This unique book investigates the history and future of American Indian economic activities and explains why tribal governments and reservation communities must focus on creating sustainable privately and tribally owned businesses if reservation communities and tribal cultures are to continue to exist.

Relates the true history, describes present-day circumstances, and sketches the potential future of Indian communities and economics. It provides key background information on indigenous economic systems and property-rights regimes in what is now the United States and explains how the vast majority of Native lands and natural resource assets were lost.

Both Prayed to the Same God is the first book-length, comprehensive study of religion in the Civil War. While much research has focused on religion in a specific context of the civil war, this book provides a needed overview of this vital yet largely forgotten subject of American History. Writing passionately about the subject, Father Robert Miller presents this history in an accessible but scholarly fashion. Beginning with the religious undertones in the lead up to the war and concluding with consequences on religion in the aftermath, Father Miller not only shows us a forgotten aspect of history, but how our current historical situation is not unprecedented.

Manifest Destiny, as a term for westward expansion, was not used until the 1840s. Its predecessor was the Doctrine of Discovery, a tradition by which Europeans laid legal claim to the land of the indigenous people that they "discovered." This book lays out the legal basis for the Indian removal practices that were implemented decades later.

Thomas Jefferson used the doctrine to exert American authority in the Louisiana Territory, to win the Pacific Northwest from European rivals, and to "conquer" the Indian nations. This title illustrates how the American colonies used the Doctrine of Discovery against the Indian nations from 1606 forward.