This book steps outside the simple stories of Indian-white relations - stories of conquest and assimilation and stories of cultural persistence. It is, instead, about a search for accommodation and common meaning. It tells how Europeans and Indians met, regarding each other as alien, as virtually nonhuman, and how between 1650 and 1815 they constructed a common, mutually conprehensible world in the region around the Great Lakes that the French called the pays d'en haut. Here the older worlds of the Algonquians and of various Europeans overlapped, and their mixture created new systems of meaning and of exchange. Finally, the book tells of the breakdown of accommodation and common meanings and the re-creation of the Indians as alien and exotic.
理查德·怀特（Richard White），美国斯坦福大学美国史荣休教授，曾任美国历史学家协会主席，美国哲学学会会员，在美国西部史、美国本土史、原住民史、环境史领域的研究颇为知名。他是麦克阿瑟（MacArthur）研究员，斯坦福大学空间历史项目前主任，并获得了梅隆大学杰出教授奖。他的作品多次获奖，并且两次入围普利策奖的决赛。其代表作《中间地带》是一部广受赞誉的美国史经典佳作，曾提名1992年普利策奖，包揽美国史研究的多个重要奖项：美国历史英语图书奖（阿伯特·J.贝弗里奇奖，Alber J. Beveridge Award）、美国历史图书奖（弗朗西斯·帕克曼奖，Francis Parkman Prize）和詹姆斯·A.罗利奖（James A.Rawley Prize）。