Other International and Area Studies Commons^™

Book Review: Water From Stone: The Story Of Selah, Bamberger Ranch Preserve By Jeffrey Greene., Louis L. Jacobs

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

That place is David Bamberger's hope and vision, his challenge, his Malabar Farm writ large. This book is about him and the restoration of Selah as his commitment to the world and to the people with him on his quest. Selah, like Walden Pond, is a place to pause and reflect, which is the meaning of the word. But however much David may be a pause-and-reflect kind of guy, he is driven toward his grand purpose. His approach is pragmatic and practical. People, finding the right ones, and building chemistry among them, is a strength that made him a successful …

News And Notes

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

Charles E. Bessey Award

Leslie Hewes Award

Symposium Announcement

Perception Of Drought Hazard And Its Sociological Impacts In South-Central Nebraska, Donna L. Woudenberg, Donald A. Wilhite, Michael Hayes

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

The lion's share of financial losses caused by drought is shouldered by crop and livestock producers. Producers' perceptions of and responses to drought were studied in the mid-1960s, the mid-1980s, and again in this study. Direct and indirect impacts are experienced by nonfarm businesses, communities, and individuals as well; some of those impacts have not been well researched and were integral to this project. Interviews with crop producers, livestock producers, and community members were conducted in Frontier County, NE, in late summer 2006. Producers are very perceptive of the drought hazard, a result found in the two previous studies. Adoption …

Six Centuries Of Fire History At Devils Tower National Monument With Comments On Regionwide Temperature Influence, Michael C. Stambaugh, Richard P. Guyette, Erin R. Mcmurry, Joseph M. Marschall, Gary Willson

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

This study documents over six centuries of historic fire events at Devils Tower National Monument in northeast Wyoming, USA. The 691-year tree-ring chronology is based on 37 ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa C. Lawson) trees collected at the monument. The period of tree-ring record ranged in calendar years from 1312 to 2002 and fire scar dates (n = 129) ranged from 1330 to 1995. The mean fire interval (MFI) for the entire record was 24.6 years, and intervals for individual trees ranged from 4 to 119 years. A period of increased fire frequency (MFI = 5.7 years) occurred from about …

Book Review: The Persons Case: The Origins And Legacy Of The Fight For Legal Personhood By Robert I. Sharpe And Patricia I. Mcmahon, Jennifer Koshan

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

Edwards v. Attorney General of Canada ("the Persons case") is a landmark Canadian legal decision. By petition of the Famous Five, this case determined in 1929 that women were "persons" qualified to be appointed to the Senate, and it coined the "living tree" metaphor to command a progressive approach to constitutional interpretation in Canada. Justice Robert Sharpe of the Ontario Court of Appeal and Toronto-based lawyer Patricia McMahon illuminate the rich connections of the Famous Five and other figures in the case to Alberta and Canadian law and politics and go on to evaluate the case's modern legacy.

Review Of George Miksch Sutton: Artist, Scientist, And Teacher. By Jerome A. Jackson., Paul A. Johnsgard

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

Sutton, an introspective and very private man, sadly destroyed many of his personal papers before he died. His Bird Student: An Autobiography (1980) documents his life only through 1935 and the end of his Cornell days. Jackson's book is especially valuable, therefore, in documenting Sutton's later years, after he had reached his prime both as scholar and artist. Although I thought I personally knew Sutton very well and wrote a small book based on a collection of his paintings of baby birds, I learned much from Jackson's narrative, which details Sutton's World War II experiences, his often frustrating years at …

Using Schools To Map The Frontier Of Settlement On The Canadian Prairies, John C. Lehr, Brian Mcgregor

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

Most attempts to map the frontier of agricultural settlement in western Canada have used land alienation data or population density calculated from census returns. Both methods are fraught with difficulties. Population density data are only available at five-year intervals at the 36-square-mile township level. Land alienation does not always reflect settlement. In Manitoba, entire townships were alienated years before they were occupied. The organization and building of schools is a better indicator of actual settlement and the emergence of community-based institutions. To test this hypothesis, school formation and land alienation in 35 townships in southeastern Manitoba were plotted. This showed …

Personal Characteristics Preceding Pro-Environmental Behaviors That Improve Surface Water Quality, Courtney E. Quinn, Mark E. Burbach

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

The decisions made by individual farmers to adopt conservation practices that improve surface water quality will be of increasing importance in the 21st century. Currently, models attempting to explain pro-environmental behaviors ignore or minimize the role of individual personality characteristics. In this paper we give an overview of current research regarding how personal characteristics influence the adoption of Best Management Practices (BMPs) and propose an expansion of measured characteristics to include farmers' work motivation, environmental attitude, and moral reasoning toward the environment. Our purpose is to spur an interest in understanding the antecedents to the pro-environmental behavior of farmers that …

Stated Preferences For Ecotourism Alternatives On Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation, Robert R. Hearne, Sheldon Tuscherer

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

Despite favorable locations and the potential for economic development, Native American tribes have not developed their ecotourism markets substantially. In this paper we present a choice experiments analysis of potential tourists' and local residents' preferences for alternative ecotourism development scenarios for the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. The choice experiments' elicitation featured attributes of both cultural and nature-based tourist attractions. Survey results demonstrated that visitors interviewed at powwows had significantly different preferences from those interviewed at local tourist attractions. Results from all samples showed positive preferences toward an amphitheater, a nature trail, and a bison meal, and no preference toward …

Book Review: Reclaiming Assessment: A Better Alternative To The Accountability Agenda By Chris W. Gallagher, Mary E. Diez

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

Chris Gallagher's description of Nebraska's Schoolbased, Teacher-led Assessment and Reporting System (STARS) is a very thoughtful participant-observer account of the state's unique response to the call for accountability in the No Child Left Behind legislation. As a researcher charged with supporting and evaluating the STARS effort, Gallagher outlines principles that have guided the STARS process, including local control, teacher leadership, professional development, community engagement, and student engagement in meaningful classroom assessment. But it is his use of narrative "portraits of practice" that gives a sense of what this Nebraska effort really means for stakeholders, from students and teachers to administrators …

Book Review: Empowerment Of North American Indian Girls: Ritual Expressions At Puberty By Carol A. Markstrom, Le Anne E. Silvey

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

Carol Markstrom's study, written from the perspective of a developmental psychologist specializing in adolescence, recognizes the cultural strengths essential to the coming-of-age ceremonies of Indigenous female adolescents at menarche. Motivated by a desire to bring proper recognition to the life-affirming rituals of North American Indian cultures, Markstrom takes you along on her journey of examining the history and impact of colonization on sociocultural expressions of puberty among Great Plains and Southwest tribes, exploring themes of renewal and regeneration in contemporary ritual expressions. While special attention is given to female puberty rituals in the Apache, Navajo, Lakota, and Ojibwa communities, what …

Producer Responses To Carbon Sequestration Incentives In The Northern Great Plains, Dean A. Bangsund, F. Larry Leistritz

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

Agricultural lands can be used as a terrestrial sink for atmospheric CO₂ by changing their management and/or use. The goal of this study was to evaluate the economic potential of carbon sequestration on cropland in the spring wheat producing region of the northern Great Plains. In order to provide a more realistic assessment of the economic potential for agricultural carbon sequestration, this study reflects regional trends in land management practices, incorporates the value of co-products from the conversion of cropland to permanent grass, and considers producer differences in crop production profitability. The economic model compared the expected net present …

Review Of Inconstant Companions: Archaeology And North American Indian Oral Traditions. By Ronald J. Mason, Rodger Echo-Hawk

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

Science and scholarship are valuable academic endeavors because they offer a transcendent perspective on human doings. In other words, these modes of inquiry establish a kind of common ground that crosses cultural boundaries. If any common ground exists among varying culture-specific oral traditions, and if any shared truths exist between the study of oral traditions and archaeological inquiry, conscientious scholarship ought to look for them. Inconstant Companions offers no help to those scholars who want to know whether oral tradition and archaeology can conjointly shed light on ancient human history. Clearly, Mason wants us to accept his position that this …

Review Of Drinking And Sobriety Among The Lakota Sioux. By Beatrice Medicine., Teresa Milbrodt

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

Depicting alcohol use among Lakotas as both complex and culturally-specific, Beatrice Medicine's book is an important addition to Native American and Great Plains studies. Medicine emphasizes that to comprehend its social, psychological, and economic dimensions fully, one must understand Lakota customs and two hundred years of history.

Review Of The Geography Of American Poverty: Is There A Need For Place-Based Policies? By Mark D. Partridge And Dan S. Rickman., David J. Peters

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

This book is a comprehensive examination of poverty in the United States from 1969 to 1999. Its three main objectives are to document the uneven distribution of poverty, to explore its underlying demographic and economic determinants, and to offer policy prescriptions for its amelioration. The analysis of rural poverty is likely to be of most interest to readers of Great Plains Research.

The Geography of American Poverty authoritatively documents the trends and determinants of American poverty across both space and time. Its strength is in its quantitative analysis, but what interests poverty researchers may be tedious for nontechnical audiences. Its …

Book Review: Twilight Of The Texas Democrats: The 1978 Governor's Race By Kenneth Bridges, Sean P. Cunningham

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

The political earth shook in 1978 when, for the first time since Reconstruction, a Republican won Texas's most coveted electoral prize, the governorship. In his new book, Twilight of the Texas Democrats, historian Kenneth Bridges provides what for years to come will be undoubtedly the most well-written and comprehensive account of this critical moment. Bridges's book is a fast-paced, traditional political narrative. Though the author briefly contextualizes the political culture of the late 1970s by retracing Texas history from the Civil War to the modern era, the book's primary focus and major characters are the candidates and campaign managers …

Review Of Greener Pastures: Decentralizing The Regulation Of Agricultural Pollution. By Elizabeth Brubaker, Eva Pip

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

Greener Pastures chronicles the proliferation of intensive hog production in Canada. Exploring the history of right-to-farm legislation, Elizabeth Brubaker focuses on the experiences of Manitoba, New Brunswick, and Ontario, although parallel situations may be found throughout the country. Starting with Manitoba's notorious 1976 Nuisance Act, which paved the way for similar industryshielding legislation in all other provinces, this book follows the devious evolution of laws that protect barn operators from environmental and public health liabilities, erode citizens' rights to seek relief and compensation through the judicial system, and remove decision-making powers from the communities that will be most affected. The …

Moving To The Rural Great Plains: Point Of Origin Differences In The Decision-Making Process, Randolph L. Cantrell, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Bruce B. Johnson, Charlotte Narjes, Rebecca J. Vogt

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

Census data demonstrate that the movement of population in the rural Great Plains is not one-way. People do indeed move into as well as out of the region. Past research has identified perceptions of the quality of life in rural areas as an important consideration in the decision to migrate to such areas. However, those studies have not segmented the population of migrants in such a way as to fully inform efforts to recruit new residents. Using data collected from a survey of new Nebraska Panhandle residents, this study describes the motivations of recent migrants from both metropolitan and nonmetropolitan …

Review Of Doing Science And Doing Good: A History Of The Bureau Of Child Research And The Schiefelbusch Institute For Life Span Studies At The University Of Kansas. Edited By Richard L. Schiefelbusch And Stephen R. Schroeder., Warren J. White

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

Stating "I grow weary knowing about the yearly increase in appropriations for research on the care and feeding of livestock knowing that we appropriate nothing for research on the care and nurture of children," Dr. Florence Brown Sherbon in 1921 convinced the Kansas Legislature to pass a statute forming the Bureau of Child Research (BCR). From that beginning grew one of the most remarkable research centers in the United States focusing on children with mental retardation. Doing Science and Doing Good tells the story of how a small group of visionary researchers and administrators at the University of Kansas and …

Great Plains Reasearch: A Journal Of Natural And Social Sciences Volume 18, Number 1, Spring 2008: Table Of Contents

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

NATURAL SCIENCES

Engineer Cantonment, Missouri Territory, 1819-1820: America's First Biodiversity Inventory (Hugh H. Genoways and Brett C. Ratcliffe)

Testing Multigenerational Colonization of Carrion by Blow Flies in the Great Plains (Timothy E. Huntington, David O. Carter, and Leon G. Higley)

Mapping Agricultural Land Cover for Hydrologic Modeling in the Platte River Watershed of Nebraska (Patti R. Dappen, Ian C. Ratcliffe, Cullen R. Robbins, and James W. Merchant)

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Using Schools to Map the Frontier of Settlement on the Canadian Prairies (John C. Lehr and Brian McGregor)

Mapping the Dispossession: Scandinavian Homesteading at Fort Totten, 1900-1930 (Karen V. Hansen and …

Book Review: Influenza 1918: Disease, Death, And Struggle In Winnipeg By Esyllt W. Jones, Mark Osborne Humphries

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

Jone's argument is convincing, even if the book relies a little too heavily on newspaper accounts. On the other hand, the author makes use of the unmined files of the Manitoba Mothers' Allowance and the Winnipeg Children's Home to catch a rare and fleeting glimpse of familial life during the pandemic.

On the whole, Influenza 1918 is a stylistically mature, well-documented, and engaging book that delivers cogent and insightful analysis on a timely topic. It is the new standard for studies of the flu and epidemics in Canada and will serve as an excellent model for some time to come.

Mapping The Dispossession: Scandinavian Homesteading At Fort Totten, 1900-1930, Karen V. Hansen, Mignon Duffy

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

Once Spirit Lake Dakota Reservation was opened to white homesteading in 1904, the turnover of land from Dakota to Euro-American hands was rapid. Scandinavians, the largest foreign-born group in the state, took advantage of this land-taking opportunity and moved onto the reservation in great numbers, acquiring approximately 25% of the land within six years. In effect, while the Scandinavians lived as neighbors with the Dakota, they also became the harbinger of the dispossession of Dakota land.

Using quantitative analysis oflandownership specified in plat maps of the reservation in 1910, this article analyzes the gender and ethnicity of the landowners. Oral …

Investigating Psychosocial Well-Being Among Ethnically Diverse Rural Women: Expect The Unexpected, Rochelle L. Dalla, Catherine Huddleston-Casas, Maria León

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

The purpose of this study was to examine patterns of similarity and difference in psychosocial well-being among 42 first-generation, Spanish-speaking Latinas, 23 second-generation, English-speaking Latinas, and 25 English-speaking Caucasian women residing in five unique rural Nebraska communities. Participants completed a series of self-report survey instruments to assess indices of psychosocial health, including: marital satisfaction, marital communication, family communication, social support, and depression. Spanishspeaking Latinas and English-speaking Caucasians evidenced the greatest similarity in patterns of experience. Twenty-eight percent of the total sample (n = 25) scored above the clinical cutoff for depression. Implications and suggestions for future work are discussed.

Historic And Recent Distributions Of Elk In Nebraska, Kent A. Fricke, Michael A. Cover, Scott E. Hygnstrom, Scott R. Groepper, Hugh H. Genoways, Kit M. Hams, Kurt C. Vercauteren

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

Elk (Cervus elaphus) were historically found throughout North America but were extirpated from Nebraska and much of the Great Plains in the 1880s due to consumptive uses by settlers, miners, market hunters, and others. Elk began to reappear in Nebraska in the 1950s and 1960s, and established a stable, nonmigratory population that currently consists of seven herds and an estimated 1,400 individuals throughout western and central Nebraska. The reappearance and subsequent persistence of elk in Nebraska suggests there is adequate habitat to support a self-sustaining population. The general movement of elk eastward may lead to an eventual statewide …

Book Review: Zhorna: Material Culture Of The Ukrainian Pioneers By Roman Paul Fodchuk, Svitlana P. Kukharenko

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

For Roman Paul Fodchuk the zhorna, or stone quem mills, symbolically represent the hardships early Ukrainian pioneers in Alberta experienced and successfully overcame while adapting to their new life. The book covers a broad range of the material culture topics-from pioneers' clothing and house utensils to house building and agricultural technology. Throughout its six chapters, the author presents the pioneers' chronological "becoming" through the lenses of material culture objects, both those brought with them at the end ofthe 19th century and also objects made in Canada.

Book Review: Aryan Cowboys: White Supremacists And The Search For A New Frontier, 1970-2000 By Evelyn A. Schlatter, Mark S. Hamm

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

Drawing from diverse sources-historical, journalistic, the Internet, and interviews with several imprisoned members of the Order-Schlatter offers a panoramic view of the American white supremacy movement. In many ways, this movement is emblematic of late modernity's defining trait: a world always in flux, awash in marginality and exclusion. Schlatter argues that the eccentric beliefs of white supremacy groups are sewn together from the threads of previous movements. The Klan of the 1920s and William Dudley Pelly's Silver Shirts of the German Nazi era are threaded to the millennialism of Aryan Nations, the Posse Comitatus, and Timothy McVeigh through Protestant agrarianism …

Review Of Genetically Engineered Crops: Interim Policies, Uncertain Legislation. Edited By Lain E.P. Taylor, Rene C. Van Acker

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

Taylor has compiled a range of informed perspectives on ways to advance the regulation of GE crops, with examples from around the world. M. Korthals argues in chapter 6 for mechanisms that would allow for a coevolution of society and GE development, since the broadest benefits from GE crops, he holds, can only be realized if the fundamental basis for their regulations resides in societal participation. Tn chapter 7, Taylor echoes this call and asks what traits society might seek in GE crops and to what extent social desires would differ from the agroindustrial traits currently available or being developed. …

Book Review: Slipping Backward: A History Of The Nebraska Supreme Court By James W. Hewitt., Cloyd Clark

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

James W. Hewitt answers that question and many more in his history of the Nebraska Supreme Court, Slipping Backward, which covers the court and its judges from 1938 through 1995. It is the first history of the Nebraska Supreme Court and the first book-length study of a Great Plains supreme court. Hewitt approached his task by reading each of the 14,335 cases decided by the Nebraska Supreme Court during those years, then artfully organizing his history around four Chief Justices of the court: Robert G. Simmons (1938-63), Paul W. White (1963-78), Norman Krivosha (1978-87), and William C. Hastings (1987-95). This …

Assessment Of Conservation Reserve Program Fields Within The Current Distribution Of Lesser Prairie-Chicken, Dana Ripper, Megan Mclachlan, Theodore Toombs, Tammy Vercauteren

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

Populations of lesser prairie-chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) have declined by more than 90%, due primarily to the conversion of sand-sage and mixed-grass prairie to agriculture, overgrazing by domestic livestock, juniper encroachment, and fossil-fuel development. Degradation of native habitats has made restored cropland through the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) potentially one ofthe best management options for lesser prairie-chicken. An estimated 1.4 million hectares of CRP exist within the lesser prairie-chicken range. We assessed 1,019 CRP fields representing more than 51,000 hectares within the current distribution of the lesser prairie-chicken. We sampled various grassland plantings including Farm Service Agency conservation practices …

Book Review: America: Our Next Chapter: Tough Questions, Straight Answers By Chuck Hagel With Peter Kaminsk, Charlyne Berens

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

In America: Our Next Chapter, Hagel presents his take on where the nation stands and where he thinks it is-and should be-headed. The volume reflects his interest in history, his Nebraska heritage, and the insider knowledge he's gained as a member of the Senate and its Foreign Relations Committee. More than half the book addresses international relations and U.S. foreign policy, one of Hagel's longtime and most intense interests. It criticizes America's invasion of Iraq and the way the Bush administration handled the war. Hagel voted for the resolution authorizing the invasion but writes that the president and his …