Other International and Area Studies Commons^™

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

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

It is our thesis that members of the Stephen Long Expedition of 1819-20 completed the first biodiversity inventory undertaken in the United States at their winter quarters, Engineer Cantonment, Missouri Territory, in the modern state of Nebraska. This accomplishment has been overlooked both by biologists and historians, but it should rank among the most significant accomplishments of the expedition. The results of this inventory allow us to evaluate the environmental, faunal, and floral changes along the Missouri River in the intervening nearly 190 years. The historical records form a visual image of a dynamic riverine system in which a highly …

Developing The Nature-Based Tourism Sector In Southwestern North Dakota, Nancy M. Hodur, F. Larry Leistritz, Kara L. Wolfe

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

Rural communities increasingly are looking to the tourism sector as a source of economic growth. Southwestern North Dakota has experienced substantial out-migration and population loss, resulting in designation of the eight-county area as a Rural Economic Area Partnership (REAP) zone in 1995. The purpose of this study was to (1) identify opportunities for expanding the region's tourism sector, (2) identify challenges and obstacles facing tourism businesses, and (3) frame key issues and outline potential options for area decision makers. Information was gathered from (1) a survey of the region's tourism businesses, (2) focus-group interviews with tourism business operators, and (3) …

Review Of Canada's Wheat King: The Life And Times Of Seager Wheeler. By Jim Shilliday, Merle Massie

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

The writing is fluid and simple, and each chapter, in true literary style, ends with either a commentary or a cliffhanger. The photographs are clear and well chosen, with a good balance of field and family, if perhaps too many of the Isle of Wight, and not enough of the farm where his work took him to fame. There are a few historical stumbles: for example, Shilliday's sketch of the 1885 Riel Rebellion paints it as an Indian uprising, contrary to recent scholarship such as Bill Waiser and Blair Stonechild's Loyal Till Death (1997), which portrays a clear distinction between …

Review Of Eau Canada: The Future Of Canada's Water. Edited By Karen Bakker., Henry David Venema

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

Karen Bakker has assembled an impressive list of contributors from academia and civil society, including internationally renowned physical and social scientists and prominent former civil servants. Lavishly referenced and weighing in at a hefty 400-plus pages, the book is broken into five main sections on current governance systems, jurisdictional fragmentation, privatization and markets, pathways to better management, and worldviews. Despite its heft, Eau Canada is a compelling read. A key message repeated in several chapters is that the federal government has largely ignored the principles set out in its own 1987 Federal Water Policy, which declared an overall objective of …

Book Review: Managing Biodiversity In Agricultural Ecosystems Edited By D.I. Jarvis, C. Padoch, And H.D. Cooper, Richard K. Baydack

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

Managing Biodiversity in Agricultural Ecosystems is a series of 18 edited contributions that investigate a vast body of material relating to the broad category of "agricultural biodiversity." This subject is of increasing importance across the Great Plains of North America as we strive to ensure that our planet is able to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the abilities of future generations to meet theirs. As such, the editors have sequenced and categorized the contributions so as to ensure that treatment of a wide range of topics- crop genetic resources; livestock genetic resources; aquatic biodiversity; pollinator diversity; …

Review Of Handbook Of Forage And Rangeland Insects. Edited By William O. Lamp, Richard C. Berberet, Leon G. Higley, And Craig R. Baird. Lanham, J. E. Mcpherson

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

This handbook is another in the outstanding series published by the Entomological Society of America, now in cooperation with the American Phytopathological Society. Arranged in four sections-"Forage and Rangeland Production," "Arthropods and Their Management," "Injurious Arthropods," and "Beneficial Organisms"- each of these is divided into clearly delineated subsections, allowing readers easy access to information (along with references) that particularly interests them. The text is accompanied by outstanding color photographs throughout.

"Forage and Rangeland Production" includes a forage production history followed by discussions of North America's important legumes and grasses. Along with detailed tables of both groups' major species and their …

Book Review: Natives And Settlers Now And Then: Historical Issues And Current Perspectives On Treaties And Land Claims In Canada Edited By Paul W. Depasquale, Michael Cottrell

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

Natives and Settlers Now and Then is a slim volume that will be of great interest to scholars of Indigenous Studies and Native-Newcomer relations. Its primary focus is on the Canadian Great Plains, but it also touches on broader Indigenous issues in the United States and New Zealand. Edited by Paul W. DePasquale, the collection contains five essays based on presentations delivered by academic scholars, activists, and legal experts at a conference of the same name held at the University of Alberta in 2000. Its organizers sought to place "Natives and Native issues at the centre of the event," and …

Book Review: The Flora Of Nebraska: Keys, Descriptions, And Distribntional Maps Of All Native And Introduced Species That Grow Outside Cultivation: With Observations About Their Past, Present, And Future Status By Robert B. Kaul, David Sutherland, And Steven Rolfsmeier, James R. Estes

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

Floras are guides for the identification of the plants of a specific region-in this case, the Cornhusker State. A flora is best judged after seasons of using it for field identification, several semesters teaching the identification of plants using its keys and descriptions, or over the years as a close companion faithfully beside your dissecting scope in the herbarium. Alas, I was denied the luxury of decades, and this review was undertaken in the dead of winter, miles south of Nebraska, and out of reach of a herbarium. Even so, it is abundantly clear that in a few years The …

Review Of Predator Upon A Flower: Life History And Fitness In A Crab Spider. By Douglass H. Morse, Hank Guarisco

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

This masterfully written, 377-page book is a product of the author's 25 years of detailed natural history studies of a commonly encountered crab spider (Misumena vatia) which frequents prairies and old fields in the United States, Canada, Alaska, Mexico, Europe, Asia, and North Africa. It is a delight to read because of the author's flowing narrative style and his adeptness in placing his fascinating natural history observations of this consummate sit-and-wait predator within the broader contexts of foraging theory, reproductive biology, learning behavior, resource allocation, and, ultimately, lifetime fitness.

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.