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The Contested Plains
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Book Synopsis The Contested Plains by : Elliott West
Download or read book The Contested Plains written by Elliott West and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deftly retracing a pivotal chapter in one of America's most dramatic stories, Elliott West chronicles the struggles, triumphs and defeats of both Indians and whites as they pursued their clashing dreams of greatness in the heart of the continent.
Book Synopsis Common and Contested Ground by : Theodore Binnema
Download or read book Common and Contested Ground written by Theodore Binnema and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Common and Contested Ground, Theodore Binnema provides a sweeping and innovative interpretation of the history of the northwestern plains and its peoples from prehistoric times to the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The real history of the northwestern plains between a.d. 200 and 1806 was far more complex, nuanced, and paradoxical than often imagined. Drawn by vast herds of buffalo and abundant resources, Native peoples, fur traders, and settlers moved across the region establishing intricate patterns of trade, diplomacy, and warfare. In the process, the northwestern plains became a common and contested ground. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Binnema examines the impact of technology on the peoples of the plains, beginning with the bow and arrow and continuing through the arrival of the horse, European weapons, Old World diseases, and Euroamerican traders. His focus on the environment and its effect on patterns of behaviour and settlement brings a unique perspective to the history of the region.
Book Synopsis The Contested Plains by : Elliott West
Download or read book The Contested Plains written by Elliott West and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 1998-04-24 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deftly retracing a pivotal chapter in one of America's most dramatic stories, Elliott West chronicles the struggles, triumphs, and defeats of both Indians and whites as they pursued their clashing dreams of greatness in the heart of the continent. The Contested Plains recounts the rise of the Native American horse culture, white Americans' discovery and pursuit of gold in the Rocky Mountains, and the wrenching changes and bitter conflicts that ensued. After centuries of many peoples fashioning many cultures on the plains, the Cheyennes and other tribes found in the horse the power to create a heroic way of life that dominated one of the world's great grasslands. Then the discovery of gold challenged that way of life and led finally to the infamous massacre at Sand Creek and the Indian Wars of the late 1860s. Illuminating both the ancient and more recent history of the plains and eastern Rocky Mountains, West weaves together a brilliant tapestry interlaced with environmental, social, and military history. He treats the "frontier" not as a morally loaded term-either in the traditional celebratory sense or the more recent critical sense-but as a powerfully unsettling process that shattered an old world. He shows how Indians, goldseekers, haulers, merchants, ranchers, and farmers all contributed to and in turn were consumed by this process, even as the plains themselves were utterly transformed by the clash of cultures and competing visions. Exciting and enormously engaging, The Contested Plains is the first book to examine the Colorado gold rush as the key event in the modern transformation of the central great plains. It also exemplifies a kind of history that respects more fully our rich and ambiguous past--a past in which there are many actors but no simple lessons.
Book Synopsis The Way to the West by : Elliott West
Download or read book The Way to the West written by Elliott West and published by UNM Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elegantly assembles the environmental, social, cultural, political, and economic history of the Great Plains in the 19th century.
Download or read book Prairie Fire written by Julie Courtwright and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2023-01-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prairie fires have always been a spectacular and dangerous part of the Great Plains. Nineteenth-century settlers sometimes lost their lives to uncontrolled blazes, and today ranchers such as those in the Flint Hills of Kansas manage the grasslands through controlled burning. Even small fires, overlooked by history, changed lives-destroyed someone's property, threatened someone's safety, or simply made someone's breath catch because of their astounding beauty. Julie Courtwright, who was born and raised in the tallgrass prairie of Butler County, Kansas, knows prairie fires well. In this first comprehensive environmental history of her subject, Courtwright vividly recounts how fire-setting it, fighting it, watching it, fearing it-has bound Plains people to each other and to the prairies themselves for centuries. She traces the history of both natural and intentional fires from Native American practices to the current use of controlled burns as an effective land management tool, along the way sharing the personal accounts of people whose lives have been touched by fire. The book ranges from Texas to the Dakotas and from the 1500s to modern times. It tells how Native Americans learned how to replicate the effects of natural lightning fires, thus maintaining the prairie ecosystem. Native peoples fired the prairie to aid in the hunt, and also as a weapon in war. White settlers learned from them that burns renewed the grasslands for grazing; but as more towns developed, settlers began to suppress fires-now viewed as a threat to their property and safety. Fire suppression had as dramatic an environmental impact as fire application. Suppression allowed the growth of water-wasting trees and caused a thick growth of old grass to build up over time, creating a dangerous environment for accidental fires. Courtwright calls on a wide range of sources: diary entries and oral histories from survivors, colorful newspaper accounts, military weather records, and artifacts of popular culture from Gene Autry stories to country song lyrics to Little House on the Prairie. Through this multiplicity of voices, she shows us how prairie fires have always been a significant part of the Great Plains experience-and how each fire that burned across the prairies over hundreds of years is part of someone's life story. By unfolding these personal narratives while looking at the bigger environmental picture, Courtwright blends poetic prose with careful scholarship to fashion a thoughtful paean to prairie fire. It will enlighten environmental and Western historians and renew a sense of wonder in the people of the Plains.
Book Synopsis The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism from Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee by : Jeffrey Ostler
Download or read book The Plains Sioux and U.S. Colonialism from Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee written by Jeffrey Ostler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-07-05 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, first published in 2004, presents an overview of the history of the Plains Sioux as they became increasingly subject to the power of the United States in the 1800s. Many aspects of this story - the Oregon Trail, military clashes, the deaths of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, and the Ghost Dance - are well-known. Besides providing fresh insights into familiar events, the book offers an in-depth look at many lesser-known facets of Sioux history and culture. Drawing on theories of colonialism, the book shows how the Sioux creatively responded to the challenges of US expansion and domination, while at the same time revealing how US power increasingly limited the autonomy of Sioux communities as the century came to a close. The concluding chapters of the book offer a compelling reinterpretation of the events that led to the Wounded Knee massacre of December 29, 1890.
Book Synopsis Contested Spaces of Early America by : Juliana Barr
Download or read book Contested Spaces of Early America written by Juliana Barr and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2014-03-07 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colonial America stretched from Quebec to Buenos Aires and from the Atlantic littoral to the Pacific coast. Although European settlers laid claim to territories they called New Spain, New England, and New France, the reality of living in those spaces had little to do with European kingdoms. Instead, the New World's holdings took their form and shape from the Indian territories they inhabited. These contested spaces throughout the western hemisphere were not unclaimed lands waiting to be conquered and populated but a single vast space, occupied by native communities and defined by the meeting, mingling, and clashing of peoples, creating societies unlike any that the world had seen before. Contested Spaces of Early America brings together some of the most distinguished historians in the field to view colonial America on the largest possible scale. Lavishly illustrated with maps, Native art, and color plates, the twelve chapters span the southern reaches of New Spain through Mexico and Navajo Country to the Dakotas and Upper Canada, and the early Indian civilizations to the ruins of the nineteenth-century West. At the heart of this volume is a search for a human geography of colonial relations: Contested Spaces of Early America aims to rid the historical landscape of imperial cores, frontier peripheries, and modern national borders to redefine the way scholars imagine colonial America. Contributors: Matthew Babcock, Ned Blackhawk, Chantal Cramaussel, Brian DeLay, Elizabeth Fenn, Allan Greer, Pekka Hämäläinen, Raúl José Mandrini, Cynthia Radding, Birgit Brander Rasmussen, Alan Taylor, and Samuel Truett.
Book Synopsis Killing for Coal by : Thomas G. Andrews
Download or read book Killing for Coal written by Thomas G. Andrews and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a bold and original perspective on the 1914 Ludlow Massacre and the “Great Coalfield War.” In a story of transformation, Andrews illuminates the causes and consequences of the militancy that erupted in colliers’ strikes over the course of nearly half a century.
Download or read book Our Boys written by Joe Drape and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-08-18 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inspiring portrait of the extraordinary high-school football team whose quest for perfection sustains its hometown in the heartland The football team in Smith Center, Kansas, has won sixty-seven games in a row, the nation's longest high-school winning streak. They have done so by embracing a philosophy of life taught by their legendary coach, Roger Barta: "Respect each other, then learn to love each other and together we are champions." But as they embarked on a quest for a fifth consecutive title in the fall of 2008, they faced a potentially destabilizing transition: the greatest senior class in school history had graduated, and Barta was contemplating retirement after three decades on the sidelines. In Smith Center--population: 1,931--this changing of the guard was seismic. Hours removed from the nearest city, the town revolves around "our boys" in a way that goes to the heart of what America's heartland is today. Joe Drape, a Kansas City native and an award-winning sportswriter for The New York Times, moved his family to Smith Center to discover what makes the team and the town an inspiration even to those who live hundreds of miles away. His stories of the coaches, players, and parents reveal a community fighting to hold on to a way of life that is rich in value, even as its economic fortunes decline. Drape's moving portrait of Coach Barta and the impressive young men of Smith Center is sure to take its place among the more memorable American sports stories of recent years.
Book Synopsis The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Great Plains by : Loretta Fowler
Download or read book The Columbia Guide to American Indians of the Great Plains written by Loretta Fowler and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From where--and what--does water come? How did it become the key to life in the universe? Water from Heaven presents a state-of-the-art portrait of the science of water, recounting how the oxygen needed to form H2O originated in the nuclear reactions in the interiors of stars, asking whether microcomets may be replenishing our world's oceans, and explaining how the Moon and planets set ice-age rhythms by way of slight variations in Earth's orbit and rotation. The book then takes the measure of water today in all its states, solid and gaseous as well as liquid. How do the famous El Niño and La Niña events in the Pacific affect our weather? What clues can water provide scientists in search of evidence of climate changes of the past, and how does it complicate their predictions of future global warming? Finally, Water from Heaven deals with the role of water in the rise and fall of civilizations. As nations grapple over watershed rights and pollution controls, water is poised to supplant oil as the most contested natural resource of the new century. The vast majority of water "used" today is devoted to large-scale agriculture and though water is a renewable resource, it is not an infinite one. Already many parts of the world are running up against the limits of what is readily available. Water from Heaven is, in short, the full story of water and all its remarkable properties. It spans from water's beginnings during the formation of stars, all the way through the origin of the solar system, the evolution of life on Earth, the rise of civilization, and what will happen in the future. Dealing with the physical, chemical, biological, and political importance of water, this book transforms our understanding of our most precious, and abused, resource. Robert Kandel shows that water presents us with a series of crucial questions and pivotal choices that will change the way you look at your next glass of water.
Download or read book Daschle Vs. Thune written by Jon K. Lauck and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2016-04-18 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story behind the unseating of a Senate majority leader the race between Tom Daschle and John Thune in South Dakota was widely acknowledged as “the other big race of 2004.” Second in prominence only to the presidential race, the Daschle-Thune contest pitted the rival political ideologies that have animated American politics since the 1960s. In a sign of the ongoing strength of political conservatism, Daschle became the first Senate leader in fifty years to lose a re-election bid. Historian Jon K. Lauck, a South Dakotan who was an insider during that heated campaign, now offers a multilayered examination of this hard-fought and symbolically charged race. Blending historical narrative, political analysis, and personal reflection, he offers a close-up view of the issues that divide the nation—a case study of the continuing clash between liberalism and conservatism that has played out for more than a generation in U.S. politics. Daschle vs. Thune moves beyond the nitty-gritty of public policy to deftly show how the recent past continues to shape the ongoing political battles that animate pundits and bloggers. It is a compelling story told by a writer who knows both his home ground and how it fits into the wider U.S. context.
Book Synopsis The Last Indian War by : Elliott West
Download or read book The Last Indian War written by Elliott West and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-27 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This newest volume in Oxford's acclaimed Pivotal Moments series offers an unforgettable portrait of the Nez Perce War of 1877, the last great Indian conflict in American history. It was, as Elliott West shows, a tale of courage and ingenuity, of desperate struggle and shattered hope, of short-sighted government action and a doomed flight to freedom. To tell the story, West begins with the early history of the Nez Perce and their years of friendly relations with white settlers. In an initial treaty, the Nez Perce were promised a large part of their ancestral homeland, but the discovery of gold led to a stampede of settlement within the Nez Perce land. Numerous injustices at the hands of the US government combined with the settlers' invasion to provoke this most accomodating of tribes to war. West offers a riveting account of what came next: the harrowing flight of 800 Nez Perce, including many women, children and elderly, across 1500 miles of mountainous and difficult terrain. He gives a full reckoning of the campaigns and battles--and the unexpected turns, brilliant stratagems, and grand heroism that occurred along the way. And he brings to life the complex characters from both sides of the conflict, including cavalrymen, officers, politicians, and--at the center of it all--the Nez Perce themselves (the Nimiipuu, "true people"). The book sheds light on the war's legacy, including the near sainthood that was bestowed upon Chief Joseph, whose speech of surrender, "I will fight no more forever," became as celebrated as the Gettysburg Address. Based on a rich cache of historical documents, from government and military records to contemporary interviews and newspaper reports, The Last Indian War offers a searing portrait of a moment when the American identity--who was and who was not a citizen--was being forged.
Book Synopsis Poetic Transformations by : Claudine Ang
Download or read book Poetic Transformations written by Claudine Ang and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-10-26 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the eighteenth century, multiple migratory groups with competing political ambitions converged on the Mekong plains. In the frontier region, literati‐officials of a territorially-expanding Vietnamese state crossed paths with a network of diasporic Chinese Ming loyalists closely affiliated with the coastal trading network. Drawing on vernacular Vietnamese and classical Chinese sources, Claudine Ang identifies the different ways two leading statesmen of the time employed literature to transform the frontier region. In their rival cultural projects, we see the clash between the aspirations of Vietnamese and Chinese migrants. Ang shows how a bawdy play, in which a lascivious monk turns his charms on an unsuspecting nun, acted as a vehicle for differentiating Vietnamese lowlanders from their neighbors, and she uncovers in a suite of landscape poems coded messages aimed at founding a new Ming loyalist stronghold on the Mekong delta. Through its close reading of satirical drama and landscape poetry, Poetic Transformations captures a historical moment of overlapping visions, frustrated schemes, and contested desires on the Mekong plains.
Book Synopsis The Sand Creek Massacre by : Stan Hoig
Download or read book The Sand Creek Massacre written by Stan Hoig and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2013-02-27 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sometimes called "The Chivington Massacre" by those who would emphasize his responsibility for the attack and "The Battle of Sand Creek" by those who would imply that it was not a massacre, this event has become one of our nation’s most controversial Indian conflicts. The subject of army and Congressional investigations and inquiries, a matter of vigorous newspaper debates, the object of much oratory and writing biased in both directions, the Sand Creek Massacre very likely will never be completely and satisfactorily resolved. This account of the massacre investigates the historical events leading to the battle, tracing the growth of the Indian-white conflict in Colorado Territory. The author has shown the way in which the discontent stemming from the treaty of Fort Wise, the depredations committed by the Cheyennes and Arapahoes prior to the massacre, and the desire of some of the commanding officers for a bloody victory against the Indians laid the groundwork for the battle at Sand Creek.
Book Synopsis American Plains Indians by : Jason Hook
Download or read book American Plains Indians written by Jason Hook and published by Osprey Publishing. This book was released on 2000-09-25 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The adoption of a horse culture heralded the golden age of the Plains Indians - an age that was abruptly ended by the intervention of the white man, who forced them from their vast homelands into reservations in the second half of the 19th century. Jason Hook's fascinating text explores the culture of the American Plains Indians, covering all aspects of their society from camp life to the art of war, in a volume packed with fascinating illustrations and photographs, including eight striking full page colour plates by Richard Hook.
Book Synopsis Lakota America by : Pekka Hamalainen
Download or read book Lakota America written by Pekka Hamalainen and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-22 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive history of the Lakota Indians and their profound role in shaping America's history Named One of the New York Times Critics' Top Books of 2019 - Named One of the 10 Best History Books of 2019 by Smithsonian Magazine - Winner of the MPIBA Reading the West Book Award for narrative nonfiction "Turned many of the stories I thought I knew about our nation inside out."--Cornelia Channing, Paris Review, Favorite Books of 2019 "My favorite non-fiction book of this year."--Tyler Cowen, Bloomberg Opinion "A briliant, bold, gripping history."--Simon Sebag Montefiore, London Evening Standard, Best Books of 2019 "All nations deserve to have their stories told with this degree of attentiveness"--Parul Sehgal, New York Times This first complete account of the Lakota Indians traces their rich and often surprising history from the early sixteenth to the early twenty-first century. Pekka Hämäläinen explores the Lakotas' roots as marginal hunter-gatherers and reveals how they reinvented themselves twice: first as a river people who dominated the Missouri Valley, America's great commercial artery, and then--in what was America's first sweeping westward expansion--as a horse people who ruled supreme on the vast high plains. The Lakotas are imprinted in American historical memory. Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull are iconic figures in the American imagination, but in this groundbreaking book they emerge as something different: the architects of Lakota America, an expansive and enduring Indigenous regime that commanded human fates in the North American interior for generations. Hämäläinen's deeply researched and engagingly written history places the Lakotas at the center of American history, and the results are revelatory.
Book Synopsis Frontier Regulars by : Robert Marshall Utley
Download or read book Frontier Regulars written by Robert Marshall Utley and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1984-01-01 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Details the U.S. Army's campaign in the years following the Civil War to contain the American Indian and promote Western expansion
