Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Book Review: Colorado Water Law For Non-Lawyers By P. Andrew Jones And Tom Cech, Glenn Patterson

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Water touches the lives of all of us every day, and so, at least indirectly, do the rules that govern its allocation. Since the days of the Anasazi, and of the northern Mexican communities of irrigated farms, and especially since the 1859 gold rush, Colorado has been a leader in the development of water law in the arid West. For years, interested lay readers have faced an important gap when searching for information about Colorado water law. Justice Greg Hobbs’s Citizen’s Guide to Colorado Water Law, 3rd ed. (2009) is well written and helpful, but by design is brief …

Book Review: The Grace Abbott Reader Edited By John Sorensen With Judith Sealander, Sonya Michel

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Those familiar with the Abbott sisters generally regard Grace as the doer, Edith as the thinker. Both were leading Progressive-Era reformers, but while Edith made her mark as a pioneering social work educator and theorist, Grace—a one-time resident of Hull House who fought for women’s suffrage, immigrant rights, and child welfare—went on to become the second chief of the U.S. Children’s Bureau and gained a reputation as a powerful advocate and effective administrator. Along the way, however, Grace Abbott also wrote a number of articles and speeches that reflect deep thought as well as strong beliefs in equality and progress. …

Book Review: Remarkable Plants Of Texas: Uncommon Accounts Of Our Common Natives By Matt Warnock Turner, Jackie M. Poole

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

At last: a book dealing with numerous Texas plants that is neither a field guide nor a dry litany of ethnobotanical uses. Remarkable Plants of Texas is an easy, informative, and enjoyable read. Its 65 entries cover over 80 species of some of the most common, well-known, and well-used plants of Texas (many of which also occur in the southeastern or southwestern United States or Mexico). The short (four- to eight-page) chapters are grouped by life form: trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants (also including cacti, grasses, vines, and aquatics). Although most treatments are about a single species, a few cover …

Book Review: Silent Victims: Hate Crimes Against Native Americans By Barbara Perry, Beth R. Ritter

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Anyone familiar with Indian Country and the endemic racism and discrimination—on and off the reservations—that persist for Native Americans in the United States might assume that hate crimes perpetuated against this population are not only common but also well documented. As Barbara Perry provocatively establishes, only the former is true: Native Americans are subjected routinely to ethnoviolence, yet they rarely report these transgressions. In fact, according to Perry, Native Americans reported only 83 incidences of hate crimes in 2004 (< 1% of all reported hate crimes that year).

Perry explores several explanations for this apparent anomaly, including traditional Native cultural values of nonconfrontation. Her thesis, however, focuses primarily …

Book Review: The Politics Of Official Apologies By Melissa Nobles, Rebecca Tsosie

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

In recent years there has been an active dialogue on whether historic injustice has relevance in contemporary societies and, if so, whether an official “apology” accomplishes any beneficial purpose. Many scholars working on the topic of reparations have argued that an apology is largely irrelevant as a mere “symbolic act” unless accompanied by some material recognition of rights or transfer of resources that demonstrates a commitment to “repair” the injustice. This book, however, posits that the apology itself has value. Nobles proposes a “membership theory of apologies” that focuses on the ideological and moral value of apology rather than anticipated …

Book Review: Skeletal Biology And Bioarchaeology Of The Northwestern Plains Edited By George W. Gill And Rick L. Weathermon, W. Raymond Wood

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This volume is a capstone of George W. Gill’s long and productive (and continuing) career at the University of Wyoming, where he has spent the last three and a half decades teaching and in pursuit of the data encapsulated here. Contributions from 21 scholars, most of them his students, present studies of bioarchaeology and skeletal biology, especially in the fields of demography, pathology, and morphology. The 19 chapters (and the introductory comments by William M. Bass, Douglas H. Ubelaker, and the senior editor) cover 10,000 years on the Northwestern Plains, from the Archaic period to historic times, encompassing studies of …

Scandal On The Plains: William F. Slocum, Edward S. Parsons, And The Colorado College Controversies, Joe P. Dunn

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This is a story about a scandal that took place on the western frontier, a sexual harassment crisis involving one of giants of late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century education and the disgraceful treatment of the man who pursued the case. The treatment of the two related incidents in the several official histories of the institution constitutes a travesty that one is tempted to call "scandalous." The physical place of this saga is important because the original events transpired within a burgeoning frontier community and at a young western institution that was successfully carving out its place in the national academic scene. …

The World’S Temperate Grasslands Conservation Priorities Great Plains Studies (Spring 2010)

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Plate 2. Identified priorities for conservation of the world’s temperate grasslands. Figure produced by Department of Geography, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada, 2009.

Book Review: Ancient Nomads, Daniel J. Wescott

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Ancient Nomads is the companion book to a Canadian Museum of Civilization exhibition comparing the cultures of nomadic peoples from the Russian and Canadian grasslands. Following an introduction, the “Grasslands” chapter describes the terrain, climate, vegetation, and wildlife in the Russian Steppes and the Canadian Great Plains. The authors then provide a brief archaeological history of both regions from approximately 35,000 to 5,000 years ago. The subsequent chapters provide an overview of various cultural aspects of nomads from the Steppes and the Plains: subsistence, food, transportation, housing, clothing, use of metal, spiritual life, and relationships with other nomadic and sedentary …

Book Review Of James Lovelock: In Search Of Gaia, By John Gribbin And Mary Gribbin, Robert F. Diffendal Jr.

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

My book review editor asked me what might be relevant to the Great Plains in a biography of James Lovelock, a book I’d suggested as worth reviewing in Great Plains Research. I assured him that much in it either is or should be relevant to the Great Plains and to science researchers working on studies of aspects of the Great Plains.

James Ephraim Lovelock, born on July 26, 1919, of fairly humble origins, did not do well in school, partly because he was dyslexic. In spite of this and other health problems over the years, he went on to …

Book Review: Prairie Dogs: Communication And Community In An Animal Society By C.N. Slobodchikoff, Bianca S. Perla, And Jennifer L. Verdolin, Daniel T. Blumstein

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Prairie dogs (genus Cynomys) are midsized ground squirrels and a sentinel of the Great Plains’ health. Where there are prairie dogs, there are predators. Where there are prairie dogs, the soil is turned over and aerated. Where there are prairie dogs, plant biodiversity is maintained by their intermittent disturbance. Sadly, prairie dogs are vilified by humans: they are shot, poisoned, drowned, sucked out of their burrows with high powered vacuums, and their habitats paved over and converted to housing and shopping centers. In this book, the authors tell us about their studies of social behavior and communication in Gunnison’s …

Book Review: Spirited Encounters: American Indians Protest Museum Policies And Practices By Karen Coody Cooper, Majel Boxer

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

In recent years a number of related academic fields have explored the connections between museums and Indigenous peoples. The growth in published monographs and edited volumes has in part been spurred on by the 2004 opening of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC. This monograph raises significant questions and reveals numerous debates surrounding such issues as ownership and access to museum collections and archives; the repatriation of human remains, funerary items, and cultural patrimony; Native American traditional and modern art and art museums; the need for consultation and collaboration with Indigenous peoples and communities; and the …

Conserving Mongolia’S Grasslands, With Challenges, Opportunities, And Lessons For North America’S Great Plains, Richard P. Reading, Don Bedunah, Sukh Amgalanbaatar

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Mongolia and North America contain expansive grassland ecosystems that remain sparsely populated, dominated by agriculture, and support relatively isolated human communities dependent on natural resources. Until recently Mongolians raised livestock using extensive pastoralism without seriously threatening most of the region’s biodiversity. Yet that changed rapidly following the recent transition from a communist, command-control economy to a democratic, free-market economy. The main challenges to protecting biodiversity on grasslands in Mongolia include overgrazing, poaching, mining, and inadequate management, training, and resources. Mongolia and the Great Plains both retain great opportunities for biodiversity conservation that could also benefit local people. Mongolia has begun …

Lessons Learned From Biodiversity Conservation In The Private Lands Of Laikipia, Kenya, Siva R. Sundaresan, Corinna Riginos

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Increasingly, private land around the world is being set aside for conservation. The Laikipia District in Kenya is one area where wildlife conservation has been relatively successful on privately owned lands. This region supports a higher diversity of large mammals than any other region in East Africa, yet only 2% of the district is formally protected. Land is mostly owned and managed by private ranchers or groups of Maasai families on “group ranches.” In most private ranches, wildlife conservation and tourism have become important sources of revenue over the last two decades. Wildlife, once merely tolerated, are now considered desirable …

Book Review: Lost Tracks: Buffalo National Park, 1909-1939 By Jennifer Brower, Alan Maceachern

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Buffalo National Park stands as both a high and a low point in the history of the Canadian national park system. In 1908, it was created near Wainwright, Alberta, as a reserve, and soon a park, to house Plains bison being shipped from Montana; the park’s existence helped to restore the near-extinct species. The bison population grew too swiftly, in fact, leading to deteriorated range conditions and rampant tuberculosis. In a misguided attempt to alleviate this pressure, the Parks Branch in the 1920s shipped tubercular Plains bison to Wood Buffalo National Park, consequently infecting and hybridizing the purebred wood bison …

Book Review: Protection Of First Nations Cultural Heritage: Laws, Policy, And Reform Edited By Catherine Bell And Robert K. Paterson, Katherine Pettipas

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Editors Catherine Bell and Robert Paterson, along with fifteen contributors, have produced a leading-edge work on the complex topic of First Nations cultural heritage and the law in Canada. A companion volume to First Nations Cultural Heritage and Law: Case Studies, Voices, and Perspectives (2008), it is part of the “Law and Society Series” that promotes interdisciplinary approaches to the study of law and society. Underlying both volumes is the premise that material and intangible cultural heritage are inseparable and fundamental to Indigenous human rights and the continuity and revival of the collective identities of First Nations.

At the heart …

Book Review: Thunder And Herds: Rock Art Of The High Plains By Lawrence L. Loendorf, Linea Sundstrom

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Archaeology is often described as detective work. In this detailed exploration of the High Plains of Colorado and New Mexico, archaeologist Lawrence Loendorf proves as adept as Sherlock Holmes in bringing diverse and often surprising clues to bear on understanding the who, when, where, and why of ancient rock carvings and paintings. From climate change to cultural migrations to landscape, Loendorf carefully reconstructs the contexts, cultural and physical, in which long-ago and not-so-long-ago American Indians created this complex array of images.

The twin joys of archaeology are discovery and the challenge of filling in missing pieces of history. The former …

Book Review: Cranes: A Natural History Of A Bird In Crisis By Janice M. Hughes, Paul A. Johnsgard

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Janice Hughes’s research has mostly involved evolutionary studies of cuckoo-like birds. Thus I would not have expected her to produce what is easily the best account of America’s effort to save from extinction the whooping crane, one of our rarest and, arguably, most beautiful birds. Over the years there have been several book-length accounts of these efforts, by authors such as Robert Doughty, J.J. McCoy, Faith McNulty, and Jerome Pratt. None of these is as complete, as well written, or as compelling as this book. Additionally, it is the most up-to-date, bringing the story of the whooping crane’s recovery program …

Book Review: One Hundred Summers: A Kiowa Calendar Record By Candace S. Greene, Phillip Earenfight

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

In One Hundred Summers, Candace Greene examines a recently discovered bundle of heavily worn Kiowa calendar drawings by one of the great Kiowa calendar keepers, Silver Horn, now in the collections of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History (SNOMNH). The loose drawings, once bound in a ledger book, document events from 1828 to 1929, a period that brought unprecedented change to the Kiowas.

Greene opens her study with an introduction to the Kiowa calendar tradition, followed by two shorter chapters dealing specifically with Silver Horn’s calendar at the SNOMNH. Chapter 4 presents the 64 surviving sheets that …

Grasslands Of The World Great Plains Research (Spring 2010)

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Grasslands of the World Map

Plate 1. Grasslands discussed in this special issue are highlighted and illustrated. Figure produced by N. Bragin, Denver Zoological Foundation. Sources: ESRI World Robinson template and Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World, 2001; World Wildlife Fund – US, 2004; and Olson et al. 2001, Terrestrial ecoregions of the world: A new map of life on earth, BioScience 51:933-38.

Book Review: The Power Of The Texas Governor: Connally To Bush By Brian Mccall, Sean P. Cunningham

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

According to Brian McCall, a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives since 1991, the governorship of Texas is an office designed for individuals with the ability to project power in creative ways—beyond the mere execution of expressed authority, and with the complementary skill of a strong vision-casting and agenda-setting leadership style. Put another way, in The Power of the Texas Governor: Connally to Bush, McCall, who equates power to “a social game,” boldly claims that the Texas governorship stands as among the best laboratories for any study of human behavior. McCall attempts to use that laboratory to …

Book Review: Large-Scale Ecosystem Restoration: Five Case Studies From The United States Edited By Mary Doyle And Cynthia A. Drew, Rich Walters

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

This book focuses on how the adaptive management process is driving watershed-wide, science-based collaborative restoration efforts in the Everglades, the Platte River Basin, the California Bay-Delta, the Chesapeake Bay, and the Upper Mississippi River. The adaptive management process, driven by a federal mandates, is used in each restoration project to resolve scientific uncertainties as well as conflicts among diverse local stakeholders. All five case studies deal with the overarching issue of water quality and quantity. Restoring historic hydrologic regimes in areas where human developments have altered hydrology is the ecological goal of each of these projects. This conflict between consumptive …

Book Review: Kiowa Ethnogeography By William C. Meadows, Michael P. Jordan

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

With his latest book Meadows has made a significant contribution to our understanding of Native American ethnogeography. Comprehensive in scope, the work addresses the Kiowa people’s evolving relationship to the land from their initial migration from the headwaters of the Yellowstone River to contemporary life in rural southwestern Oklahoma. Meadows demonstrates that the Kiowa people have maintained a sense of homeland throughout two episodes of migration, confinement to a reservation, and the allotment of tribal lands in 1901. After providing a useful overview of research on Native American ethnogeography, he delves into a discussion of Kiowa interactions with the environment …

News And Notes Great Plains Studies (Spring 2010)

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

CONFERENCES

PROGRAM ANNOUNCEMENT

CHARLES E. BESSEY AWARD

LESLIE HEWES AWARD

THE GREAT PLAINS DISTINGUISHED BOOK PRIZE

Book Review: Health Care In Saskatchewan: An Analytical Profile By Gregory Marchildon And Kevin O’Fee, Kelly Chessie

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Marchildon and O’Fee set out to provide a detailed description of the Saskatchewan health care system, integrating details of how health care is organized, funded, and delivered in this Canadian prairie province. To accomplish their goal of fostering a better understanding of the provincial health system and its inputs and outcomes, they walk their readers through a thicket of details, including standings on health status indicators; macrolevel organizational structures; financing and expenditures; range of services, resources and technologies; and a sample of semirecent health reforms. They then close with a brief assessment of the system’s performance.

What the authors attempt …

Book Review: The Grace Abbott Reader Edited By John Sorensen With Judith Sealander, Sonya Michel

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Those familiar with the Abbott sisters generally regard Grace as the doer, Edith as the thinker. Both were leading Progressive-Era reformers, but while Edith made her mark as a pioneering social work educator and theorist, Grace—a one-time resident of Hull House who fought for women’s suffrage, immigrant rights, and child welfare—went on to become the second chief of the U.S. Children’s Bureau and gained a reputation as a powerful advocate and effective administrator. Along the way, however, Grace Abbott also wrote a number of articles and speeches that reflect deep thought as well as strong beliefs in equality and progress. …

Global Trends In Private Protected Areas And Their Implications For The Northern Great Plains, Jeff Langholz

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Like many parts of the world, the Northern Great Plains faces immense challenges to sustainable land use. Privately owned conservation areas have emerged as a potential solution. This article reviews five global trends in so-called private protected areas and discusses their implications for the Northern Great Plains. The trends point to five recommendations to the Northern Great Plains community: (1) act now to tap rapidly growing policy support; (2) combine many models, including private protected areas that are owned by individuals and groups, formal and informal, large and small, and are dedicated to strict protection as well as sustainable use; …

Conservation And Economic Lessons Learned From Managing The Namibrand Nature Reserve, Nils Odendaal, Danica Shaw

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

The NamibRand Nature Reserve, located in southern Namibia, is a private nature reserve established to protect and conserve the unique ecology and wildlife of the southwest Namib Desert. At 172,200 ha, NamibRand is one of the largest private conservation areas in southern Africa. The reserve consists of 13 former livestock farms rehabilitated into a continuous natural conservation area and shares a 100 km border with the Namib-Naukluft National Park. The reserve is a model for private conservation in southern Africa, as it demonstrates holistic biodiversity conservation balanced with financial sustainability. Innovative approaches to resource management ensure that this critical area …

Book Review: Transplanting The Great Society: Lyndon Johnson And Food For Peace By Kristin L. Ahlberg, R. Douglas Hurt

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

In 1954 the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act, commonly known as Public Law 480, established a new food aid program designed to eliminate agricultural surpluses and improve farm prices. Although Congress also intended it to expand foreign trade, encourage foreign economic development, and enhance the foreign policy of the United States, Lyndon Johnson used Public Law 480 as a political tool to extend the principles of the Great Society internationally and, most importantly, fight Communist expansion. Rechristened as the Food for Peace program in 1959, Lyndon Johnson later transformed it from a domestic agricultural policy to a foreign policy …

Great Plains Research Spring 2010 Front Matter

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Saving the World’s Grasslands: An Introduction Richard Edwards and Richard P. Reading, Guest Editors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Global Trends in Private Protected Areas and Their Implications for the Northern Great Plains Jeff Langholz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . …