American Studies Commons^™

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: 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: 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 …

Book Review: Healing Traditions: The Mental Health Of Aboriginal Peoples In Canada Edited By Laurence J. Kirmayer And Gail Guthrie Valaskakis, Peter Menzies

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

In Healing Traditions, the editors have assembled the voices of 29 academics, researchers, and mental health professionals from across Canada as well as Australia and the United States. This distinguished panel offers an important contribution to our understanding of Aboriginal mental health issues and the unique healing processes currently underway in a number of communities. Kirkmayer and Valaskakis contextualize mental health in a distinctive manner, acknowledging how Canada’s First Peoples have been affected by colonization over several hundred years. We learn how historic social policies continue to affect individuals, their families, and the communities in which they live. The …

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 …

Book Review Of Just One Vote: From Jim Walding’S Nomination To Constitutional Defeat By Ian Stewart., James A. Mcallister

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

This story is almost Shakespearean in its dramatic proportions. It includes an overly ambitious politician frustrated by his leader’s refusal to make him a cabinet minister, an even more ambitious politician’s wife pushing him beyond his abilities and fostering his bitterness, and a government leader faced with a difficult colleague whose actions brought down the government, led to the leader’s resignation, and almost destroyed a political party. Just One Vote is a welcome addition to the already significant Canadian literature on the New Democratic Party of Manitoba. The attention paid to this subject reflects the party’s democratic socialist ideology and …

Book Review Of The Nation’S Largest Landlord: The Bureau Of Land Management In The American West By James R. Skillen., Clare Ginger

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

James Skillen provides a comprehensive assessment of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), its origins, evolution, and ongoing efforts to manage the public lands for an increasing array of resources. His account documents the legal and political matrix in which the agency operates, recording the roles of key actors and processes that have influenced public lands administration, including members of Congress and presidential administrations, interest group politics, and efforts to bring expertise to the task of managing the public lands. Skillen organizes the results of his investigation into a chronology characterizing the BLM’s mandates and operations through two themes: “questions …

Evaluating A Hybrid Soil Temperature Model In A Corn-Soybean Agroecosystem And A Tallgrass Prairie In The Great Plains, Song Feng, F. Salvagiotti, M. R. Schmer, A. B. Wingeyer, A. Weiss

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

Simulation models of soil-related biological processes usually require soil temperature data. Frequently these soil temperatures are simulated, and the soil temperature algorithms cannot be more complicated than the original process model. This situation has led to the use of semi-empirical-type relationships in these process models. The objective of this study was to evaluate a hybrid soil temperature model, which combines empirical and mechanistic approaches, in an agroecosystem and a tallgrass prairie in the Great Plains. The original hybrid soil temperature model was developed and verified for a temperate forest system. This model simulated soil temperatures on a daily basis from …

Book Review Of Insects Of Texas: A Practical Guide By David H. Kattes., Christopher J. Durden

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

This guidebook is a well-illustrated, well-bound addition to our growing series on Texas insect fauna. Designed for the beginner and nonspecialist (and suitable for use in schools), it provides an identification aid for recognition of the groups to which common insects belong. Other references must be used in most cases to determine the species at hand. Today, BugGuide.Net will be the next step for the average reader. Most of the book is devoted to one-page presentations of a small selection of families, usually those that contain species most likely to be found by the casual observer. Common name, group name, …

Livestock Responses To Complementary Forages In Shortgrass Steppe, Justin D. Derner, Richard H. Hart

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

Livestock gains of yearling Hereford heifers were evaluated during 1996–1999 on two complementary forage grasses, “Bozoisky-Select” Russian wildrye (Psathyrostachys juncea [Fisch.] Nevski) or “Hycrest” crested wheatgrass (Agropyron cristatum [L.] Gaertn. ssp. desertorum [Fisch. ex Link] A. Love). Average daily gains were similar between light and moderate stocking rates for both Bozoisky and Hycrest, and gains trended higher for Hycrest than for Bozoisky at light stocking rates. Total annual (spring + fall) beef production (kg/ha) was consistently greater for moderate (29%–46%) than for light stocking of both complementary forages. Spring gains represented >75% of the total annual beef production …

Great Plains Research Volume 20, Number 2 (Fall 2010): Cover And Contents

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

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Ranching and State School Land in Cimarron County, Oklahoma Jacqueline Vadjunec and Rebecca Sheehan. 163

Determinants of Net Migration in Montana Evelyn D. Ravuri. 179

A Test of Personal Characteristcs that Influence Farmers’ Pro-Environmental Behaviors Courtney E. Quinn and Mark E. Burbach.193

GIS Spatial Analysis of University of Nebraska at Kearney Alumni Cohorts, 1930–2004 Paul R. Burger and Brett R. Chloupek. 205

The Really Good Buffalo Concept Test for “Values Added” Bison Diane Rickerl, Tim Nichols, and Carol Cumber. 215

NATURAL SCIENCES

Livestock Responses to Complementary Forages in Shortgrass Steppe Justin D. Derner and Richard H. Hart. 223 …

Gis Spatial Analysis Of University Of Nebraska At Kearney Alumni Cohorts, 1930–2004, Paul R. Burger, Brett R. Chloupek

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

The purpose of this study was to utilize Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology and spatial analysis coupled with the University of Nebraska at Kearney (UNK) alumni data from 1930 to 2004 in order to compare and contrast the changing distribution patterns of five-year alumni cohorts. Mean centers, location quotients, and cluster analysis were used to assess the degree to which UNK alumni cohorts have migrated over the 75-year period, the extent to which any regionalization or lack thereof occurs, and the proportion of UNK alumni per county compared to college graduates as a whole. These spatial patterns were then compared …

Book Review Of Heavy Burdens On Small Shoulders: The Labour Of Pioneer Children On The Canadian Prairies By Sandra Rollings-Magnusson, Bob Barnetson

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

The contribution of pioneer children (aged 4–16) to the economic survival of Canadian prairie farms is little known. Heavy Burdens examines the self-reported labor of 260 children in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba between 1871 and 1913. A typology of labor (subcategorized by age and gender) helpfully structures the narrative data used to flesh out this work. The importance and invisibility of child labor during the settlement of the West broadly mirrors that of women. The five core chapters of the book examine children’s work in establishing farms, commodity production, waged labor, domestic tasks, and household subsistence activities. Each chapter examines …

The Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize 2010

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

The University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Center for Great Plains Studies will present its annual Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize in May 2011 to the most significant book on the Great Plains. Only first edition nonfiction full-length books published in 2010 will be considered for the award. The annual book prize includes a $5,000 cash award.

Book Review Of Native Activism In Cold War America: The Struggle For Sovereignty By Daniel M. Cobb., Daniele Bolelli

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

Nearly all of the many books dedicated to Native activism focus on the Red Power movement that flourished between 1968 and the late 1970s. In the minds of most people familiar with the topic, Native activism has become synonymous with events such as the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island, the 1968 creation of the American Indian Movement (AIM), the 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties, the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee, and the 1970s civil war on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation. In the present book, Daniel Cobb argues that Native activism is not limited to these events. In an effort …

Book Review Of Contesting Knowledge: Museums And Indigenous Perspectives Edited By Susan Sleeper-Smith., Karen Coody Cooper

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

Seventeen scholars contributed to this group work. First exposed to compilation books in the eighties, I found the format exhilarating then. There were so many angles, so much information. Now, however, such books are, to me, rather like walking a cobblestone path. Maybe I just have inappropriate shoes, but the journey is seldom entirely smooth going. And having to adapt to different writing styles every 20 to 30 pages is an added hindrance. Still, the genre is here to stay, and Contesting Knowledge has much to recommend it. Analyzed in four out of twelve pieces, the National Museum of the …

Book Review Of Perspectives Of Saskatchewan Edited By Jene M. Porter, J. William Brennan

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

Intended to mark the centennial of Saskatchewan’s becoming a province in 1905, this collection of 18 essays has only just been published. Has it been worth the wait? A few essays stand out, either because they explore previously ignored aspects of the province’s history, or because they offer a fresh look at subjects we thought we already knew a great deal about. I would place Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond’s and Christine de Clercy’s contributions in the first category, and Brett Fairbairn’s in the second. Turpel-Lafond discusses the challenges that Aboriginal people have faced in Saskatchewan over the past 100 years by …

Great Plains Research: Annual Index

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

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of Weather Matters: An American Cultural History Since 1900 By Bernard Mergen., Donna L. Woudenberg

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

Weather Matters is a varied collection of everything sky and weather related, from history, to poetry and art, to the monitoring and impacts of weather-related natural hazards. Mergen states the book is “about the everyday experience of weather and the ways in which those experiences are perceived, marketed, and managed.” The volume is broken into five chapters focused on talking about, managing, seeing, transcribing, and suffering weather. “Talking about Weather” begins with a historical overview of “weather-bureau weather,” starting with the Congressional creation of a meteorological service administered by the U.S. Army Signal Corps in 1870 and ending with a …

Book Review Of Native American Language Ideologies: Beliefs, Practices, And Struggles In Indian Country Edited By Paul V. Kroskrity And Margaret C. Field, William F. Weigel

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

As its editors note, this collection is the first work on language ideology especially devoted to Native American languages. Its twelve articles (plus the editors’ introduction) mainly involve languages of the United States (with one each from Canada and Central America) and represent a mix of contributions by Native and non-Native scholars. The offerings generally center on the authors’ own field research, often supplemented by historical and linguistic background from secondary sources. Several themes run through many of these studies. One is a rejection of the notion that a language ideology is the monolithic stance of an entire culture. There …

Ranching And State School Land In Cimarron County, Oklahoma, Jacqueline Vadjunec, Rebecca Sheehan

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

Ranchers in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, have turned to leasing school trust land to sustain and sometimes expand their operations. Changes in the land tenure process have undergone profound transformations in the last 20 years, greatly impacting land use in the region. Coupled with an almost decade-long drought, land managers pursuing seemingly “traditional” agricultural practices call upon increasingly complicated, mixed private and public tenure options in order to make ends meet. Using a political ecology framework, we examine conflicting relationships between school land, the state, and local land managers as well as the sustainability of cattle ranching on school trust land …