American Studies Commons^™

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 …

Book Review Of Criminal Justice In Native America Edited By Marianne O. Nielsen And Robert A. Silverman., Jill E. Martin

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

The issues surrounding Native American communities and crime are addressed in the 14 essays in this volume. The book’s underlying premise is that “because of the tragic consequences of colonialism, Native American communities and organizations need more control over their own destinies and need more resources to do so; they need to be able to determine for themselves how to best provide services to their Native American members and clients.” Readers are likely to agree that Native Americans need more control over criminal justice issues. The book’s contribution is to show different ways tribes can undertake such control. The essays …

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 …

Book Review Of Retiring The Crow Rate: A Narrative Of Political Management By Arthur Kroeger., Gary Storey

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

It was the Crowsnest Pass Agreement in 1897 between the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) and the federal government that came to establish the freight rate structure for export grain. When the rates were made statutory in 1925 they remained fixed until 1983, when the Western Grain Transportation Act (WGTA) replaced the Crowsnest Pass Agreement. The fixed-rail freight rate generally provided sufficient revenues for the two major railways, the CPR and the Canadian National Railway (CNR), to develop a network of branch lines of over 19,000 miles of track designed for horse and wagon technology. After 1960, when rail costs of …

The Really Good Buffalo Concept Test For “Values Added” Bison, Diane Rickerl, Tim Nichols, Carol Cumber

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

A consortium of tribal bison producers, tribal and state university faculty, and business professionals defined a “brand” of Native American-raised bison that would reflect the cultural and spiritual values of American Indians and the historic relationship between American Indians and bison. Following a concept-testing market-research approach, surveys were distributed to potential producers and consumers of this “Good Buffalo.” The consumer respondents indicated that environmentally friendly production practices (89%), humane treatment of animals (82.1%), and supporting prairie restoration were very important aspects of the brand. Price was very important for only 42.7% of consumer respondents, and being raised by American Indians …

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 Great Plains: America’S Lingering Wild By Michael Forsberg., Joe C. Truett

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

Michael Forsberg’s magnificent photos of land, animals, and people compelled me initially to turn page after page of Great Plains. The wonderful color images pulled me into the initial historical overview and chapter introductions by historical geographer David Wishart, field journal anecdotes by Forsberg himself, and the intensely personal essays by wildlife biologist and rancher Dan O’Brien. Ted Kooser’s foreword poetically set the tone for both the photography and the text. Forsberg and O’Brien present short pieces up front to introduce the book. Then comes a sweeping historical overview by Wishart, telling in about ten text pages and numerous …

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 …

A Test Of Personal Characteristics That Influence Farmers’ Pro-Environmental Behaviors, Courtney E. Quinn, Mark E. Burbach

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

Current models of farmer conservation practices minimize the role of individual personality characteristics. This study examined the relationship between farmers’ use of conservation practices that impact surface water quality and the personality characteristics of work motivation, environmental attitude, and moral reasoning about the environment. A significant negative predictive relationship was found between an externally based self-concept and pro-environmental behaviors. This finding lends support to the notion that farmers concerned about what their neighbors and peers think may not believe their efforts to benefit surface water will be adequately recognized. A significant negative predictive relationship was found between anthropocentric reasoning and …

Book Review Of The American Indian Oral History Manual: Making Many Voices Heard By Charles E. Trimble, Barbara W. Sommer, And Mary Kay Quinlan., Susan D. Penfield

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

The American Indian Oral History Manual offers a clear, succinct, and practical approach to guide and encourage the collection of American Indian oral history by Indigenous peoples themselves. Building on previous work conducted for the Native American Veteran History Project, it was tested at two Great Plains states workshops (South Dakota and Nebraska) attended by representatives from tribal colleges and veteran interest groups. The authors bring a great deal of expertise to the table in producing this useful text. Charles Trimble, an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux tribe, has a distinguished record of involvement in Indigenous issues, including service …

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 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 Identity Captured By Law: Membership In Canada’S Indigenous Peoples And Linguistic Minorities By Sébastien Grammond, Patrick Macklem

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

In Identity Captured by Law, Sébastien Grammond assesses the constitutional and international legality of rules that control membership in Indigenous societies and the official language minorities of Canada. Grammond’s main argument is that Indigenous and minority membership rules do not violate legal commitments to equality if there is sufficient correspondence between the legal criteria that determine membership and the actual criteria that group members themselves deploy to define themselves. Membership rules based on a racial conception of ethnic identity are less likely than those based on cultural or relational conceptions of ethnic identity to correspond to actual identities and therefore …

Book Review Of Let’S Speak Chickasaw: Chikashshanompa' Kilanompoli' By Pamela Munro And Catherine Willmond, Joshua D. Hinson

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

Let’s Speak Chickasaw: Chikashshanompa’ Kilanompoli’ is a landmark achievement in Chickasaw language revitalization and fills a wide gap in the available literature. A Chickasaw Dictionary (1973), compiled by the late Reverend Jesse J. Humes and his wife, the late Vinnie May James Humes, is an English-Chickasaw word list, an effort on the Humes’ part to preserve the language in written form. Chikashshanompa' Holisso Toba'chi: Chickasaw: An Analytical Dictionary (1994) is a remarkable effort of over 12,000 entries and includes a chapter on “The Structure of Chickasaw Words,” a brief though thickly constructed examination of Chickasaw syntax, morphology, and phonology. Let’s …

Long-Term Agricultural Land-Use Trends In Nebraska, 1866–2007, Tim L. Hiller, Larkin A. Powell, Tim D. Mccoy, Jeffrey J. Lusk

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

Although landscape changes from anthropogenic causes occur at much faster rates than those from natural processes (e.g., geological, vegetation succession), human perception of such changes is often subjective, inaccurate, or nonexistent. Given the large-scale land-use changes that have occurred throughout the Great Plains, the potential impacts of land-use changes on ecological systems, and the insight gained from knowledge of land-use trends (e.g., to compare to wildlife population trends), we synthesized information related to land-use trends in Nebraska during 1866–2007. We discussed and interpreted known and potential causes of short- and long-term land-use trends based on agricultural and weather data; farm …

Book Review: Daschle Vs. Thune: Anatomy Of A High-Plains Senate Race By Jon K. Lauck, Thomas D. Isern

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

Historian, political operative, and blogger Jon K. Lauck offers an insider’s account of the 2004 United States Senate race in South Dakota. Democrat Tom Daschle, leader of his party in the Senate, sought reelection and was challenged by Republican John Thune. Lauck seeks to explain Thune’s surprising victory—or rather, as the account unfolds, Daschle’s bitter loss. As is the way with insider accounts, this one produces some striking insights, but is also somewhat limited by its perspective.

Daschle in 2004 struggled, as Lauck puts it, with “the LBJ dilemma”—how to lead a liberal party in Washington while campaigning back home …

Book Review: Ecology Of The Shortgrass Steppe: A Long-Term Perspective Edited By William Lauenroth And Ingrid C. Burke, Richard K. Sutton

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

Ecology of the Shortgrass Steppe represents the newest in a series of books detailing the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites found throughout the United States. The book’s editors, associated with the on-going interdisciplinary research at the Central Plains Experimental Range and nearby Pawnee National Grasslands, bring 40 years of work to understanding this unique ecosystem.

The book proceeds from general overview chapters about the context, climate, soils, and plant community of what the editors call the shortgrass steppe (shortgrass prairie) to more detailed chapter reviews of its disturbance regime, faunal communities, primary production, organic and gas exchanges, grazing, and finally …

Book Review: Power Struggles: Hydro Development And First Nations In Manitoba And Quebec Edited By Thibault Martin And Steven M. Hoffman, Merrell-Ann S. Phare

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

When First Nations try to protect their lands and waters it very often involves a struggle against some form of energy-related development. The greatest challenge facing those wishing to understand the long and complicated history between First Nations and hydro development in Canada is just that: it’s a very long and complex story. While this history begins over 50 years ago, the ensuing destruction of Indigenous lands and waters, cultures and ways of life, continues to this day.

Many have believed the time of building new big dams was over, especially since the Report of the World Commission on Dams …

Book Review: Establishing Justice In Middle America: A History Of The United States Court Of Appeals For The Eighth Circuit By Jeffrey Brandon Morris, Mark R. Scherer

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

The United States Supreme Court accepts for review less than two percent of the cases presented to it on appeal. For the vast majority of litigants in the federal court system, therefore, the circuit courts of appeal are truly the “court of last resort,” and throughout American history those courts have had the final say on a wide range of critical issues. Yet despite these truths, books about the Supreme Court arrive on the shelves almost daily, while treatments of the lower courts remain rare. Thus, Jeffrey Brandon Morris’s goal in Establishing Justice in Middle America is both admirable and …

Book Review: Archaeological Landscapes On The High Plains Edited By Laura L. Scheiber And Bonnie J. Clark, Marcel Kornfeld

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

In 1962 Lewis Binford (American Antiquity, 28 [2]:217-25) classified archaeological objects into technomic, sociotechnic, and ideotechnic categories. In the following decades the New Archaeologists, largely concerned with societies at the Domestic Mode of Production, emphasized the technomic objects. Prehistorians of state societies were much more frequently faced with socio- and ideotechnic objects, ritual and state symbols; the significance of these to all societies eventually crawled back into the thinking of prehistorians of band and tribal systems.

Thence come landscapes into the archaeological discourse. As with manufactured objects, landscapes can be categorized into technomic, sociotechnic, and ideotechnic classes. And …

Book Review: Collaborating At The Trowel’S Edge: Teaching And Learning In Indigenous Archaeology Edited By Stephen W. Silliman, Joe Watkins

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

This book is an outgrowth of a symposium presented at the 2005 Society for American Archaeology annual meeting and judged by the Amerind Foundation as the conference’s outstanding symposium. The original symposium papers, further refined during an Amerind Foundation-sponsored seminar held in October of the same year, form the book’s chapters. The volume’s rather lofty goal, as set out in Silliman’s introductory chapter, is to “redirect contemporary archaeology in many ways that are more methodologically rich, theoretically interesting, culturally sensitive, community responsive, ethically aware, and socially just.”

The chapters in part 1 focus on field schools and workshops conducted in …

Book Review: Moving Toward Justice: Legal Traditions And Aboriginal Justice Edited By John D. Whyte, Kelly Larocca

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

Moving toward justice for Aboriginal peoples requires a narrowing of the gap between the theory of Aboriginal rights and practice. The increase in political resolve required to promote the priority of justice for Aboriginal peoples will be achieved only through a reinforcement of mutual obligations that form the core of Aboriginal rights.

While this collection is substantially grounded in discussions of social development through law, Constitutionalism, and public administration, it is unclear that the concept of priority within the larger intersocietal relationship is ever directly engaged. Though the essays represent an impressive and promising diversity of views, there is a …

Book Review: Food And The Mid-Level Farm: Renewing An Agriculture Of The Middle Edited By Thomas A. Lyson, G.W. Stevenson, And Rick Welsh, Richard A. Levins

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

The central question of Food and the Mid-Level Farm is both complex and fascinating: how can we renew an agriculture of the middle? To a large degree, the answer lies with what we think an “agriculture of the middle” is.

For decades, we have heard of a trend toward “bimodal agriculture” in which there are very many small farms, relatively few giant corporate operations, and not much in the middle. Most discussions of this “middle” go no farther than the scale of the operation, that is, the acreage, number of animals, and that sort of thing. The approach here moves …

Book Review: Loren Eiseley: Commentary, Biography, And Remembrance Edited By Hilda Raz, Rasoul Sorkhabi

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

This little book is a nice addition to the Loren Eiseley shelf in my home library. Much has been written about Eiseley’s life, thought, and work, but he still remains little known to the public at large. As authors of essays in this volume testify from various angles, Eiseley’s writings are a rich reservoir of notions and emotions that connect humans to nature, life, and to themselves. The essays were first published in the Fall 1997 issue of Prairie Schooner, the journal in which the 20-year-old Eiseley published his first poem in 1927.

Scott Slovic’s introductory chapter is a …

Analysis Of Aquifer Depletion Criteria With Implications For Groundwater Management, Jesse T. Korus, Mark E. Burbach

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

Groundwater is critical to many aspects of life on the Great Plains. Overdevelopment of this resource can have serious social, economic, and environmental consequences. Aquifer depletion criteria are used in many areas of the Great Plains to implement management responses and limit groundwater development. This study addresses groundwater-level triggers and depletion limits—criteria commonly used in Nebraska—within the context of interconnected ground- and surface-water systems. Generic models are used to calculate transient water budgets in three hypothetical systems given depletion limits of 5%, 10%, 15%, and 25%. In each simulation, the source of water to the wells changes from aquifer depletion …

News And Notes Fall 2009

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

News and Notes

CALL FOR PAPERS

CONFERENCES

The Grasshoppers Arphia Xanthoptera And Dichromorpha Viridis Prefer Introduced Smooth Brome Over Other Grasses, Sean D. Whipple, Mathew L. Brust, Wyatt Hoback, Kerri M. Farnsworth-Hoback

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

A study of feeding preference was conducted on two tallgrass prairie grasshopper species, the autumn yellow-winged grasshopper Arphia xanthoptera (Burmeister) and the short-winged green grasshopper Dichromorpha viridis (Scudder), to determine if they would feed upon introduced grass species. Both grasshoppers were offered two non-native cool-season grasses, smooth brome (Bromus inermis Leyss) and Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.), and two native warm-season grasses, big bluestem (Adropogon gerardii Vitman) and sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula Michx.). Live biomass of the plants was weighed before and after feeding to quantify the amount of each plant species consumed by the grasshoppers. …

Book Review: New Faces In New Places: The Changing Geography Of American Immigration Edited By Douglas S. Massey, John Defrain

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

Patterns of immigration to the U.S. have been changing since the 1990s. The geographic dispersion of immigrants away from traditional urban gateways— New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, and Chicago— into smaller communities throughout the country means that millions of native-born Americans lacking any experience with foreigners are now, for the first time in living memory, having direct and sustained contact with unassimilated immigrants. The newcomers settle in small towns as well as large cities, in the middle of the country as well as the coasts. Especially relevant to Great Plains Research readers, the new immigrants have discovered the Middle …

Book Review: Grappling With Demon Rum: The Cultural Struggle Over Liquor In Early Oklahoma By James E. Klein, Davis D. Joyce

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

When asked to review this book for Great Plains Research, the first thought to cross my mind was of Jimmie Lewis Franklin’s Born Sober: Prohibition in Oklahoma, 1907-1959, for Franklin set a high standard on the subject of prohibition in Oklahoma with that 1971 work. Indeed, Franklin, now retired from Vanderbilt University, provided one of the endorsements for the dust jacket of James E. Klein’s work, calling it “An engaging study of the intense battle over liquor in the early years of the Sooner state. In a careful and sophisticated analysis Klein shows that tensions over prohibition arose …