North Dakota Books

I gave this book as a gift to students in my history class. They enjoyed it!

This type of book lacks significant detail on the subject it deals with, in this case its the Sioux Indians of the Wild Frontier. Any child given this book is going to be sent off on a "wild goose chase" in terms of understanding these Indians, their habits, and their activities in the pre-reservation era.
To be honest, this sort of book is so slanted and lacking, that it equals the motion picture "Dances With Wolves" in terms of just how misleading its information really is. Children lacking a basic understanding of this continent's early history will get a highly distorted, Politically Correct, and totally false image of the Indians they are attempting to learn about.
For a much better, entirely REALISTIC and FACT-FILLED look into Frontier history, your children should read The Kiowas (Civilization of the American Indian Series), and Life Among the Apaches (Bison Book) and also Nine Years Among the Indians, 1870-1879: The Story of the Captivity and Life of a Texan Among the Indians, as well as Three Years Among the Comanches: The Narrative of Nelson Lee, the Texas Ranger. And if they are specifically interested in the Sioux, they shouldn't miss Scalp Dance: Indian Warfare on the High Plains, 1865-1879
These books will offer your children FACTS not sanitized fiction concerning the American Indian of yesteryear. They will provide a knowledge of Frontier history which will allow any child to bypass ALL Politically Correct dogma with ease and grasp the reality behind what happened during the early part of this continent's settling and civilizing.
However, it is unfortunate that all the "warm-fuzzy" "Dances With Wolves" enthusiasts seem to gravitate toward this sort of literature, which is far from containing anything nearly realistic or balanced in terms of information. But now you know the antidote - just read the titles I've recommended here and prepare yourself and your children for enlightenment.

This book could tell you the answers or doubts about the Sioux indians.It tells you in the the point as if you lived with the Sioux indians.I really like this book because it really helps out in projects you need to research.

This book tackles the topic of the Sioux tribes for fought for, or more often against, the US in the mid-late 19th Century. It is a detailed source on the clothing and material culture of these peoples, and also provides a good foundation for the study of their culture. My reason for giving it only three stars is that it strays from the main thrust of the Osprey Men-at-Arms series. Easily half the figures in the plates are either women or unarmed males, and the text does not discuss the armament of fighting styles of these warrriors in detail. For someone like me who is seeking an Osprey book that is truly about the Amerindian warriors, there are better alternatives (notably Comanche 1800-1875).

This book provides an excellent overview of what these warriors wore but little on tactics, strategy and the men themselves (backgrounds, etc.). Excellent reference for model and figurine builders but not for those interested in what was beneath the surface.

As a history teacher, I think it is essential to continue to tell the story to future generations of Americans. The many diverse tribes of Native Americans that covered North America all have vastly unique and incredible stories to learn from and share.

Unlike the last reviewer I was excited to read the book. Unfortunately it was a big dissapointment. I was bored to tears while reading this poorly written remake of every Native American story ever written, with none of the originality. It is truly surprising to see the level of writing published today, this is horrible.

I was sceptical to read this book because it was assigned to me to read for one of my criminal justice courses. However, I was really absorbed in the story of the Native American Tribe, the Lakotas. The book is written from an "Americanized" point of view. It tells a story of the authors great grandmother and her life as a Lakota woman. There are many fun and interesting things that happen to the Turgle Lung Woman. She speaks of her courting rituals, battle rituals, labor divisions between men and women, children roles.
There are interesting stories about homosexuality, adultury, death, commitment to the tribe and war.
Definitely an interesting book that contains historical facts and the culture of the Lakota tribe.

A beautiful minds, loving words, about family, about a people, about a way of life. This story combined with the beauty in word of " Bead on an Anthill " Delphine's first book sets the mind and soul, for a journey into one's self.
In the female voice of the Lakota, live the life set in the beauty that is the Northern Plains, of this Turtle Island.
The writting style is such , to savor each word as if it could fill you with the images it creates.
This is what award winning writing should be about.........

This is about the third Wilcox novel in a row that made it seem like maybe the writer was in a creative rut or something. In this installment of the series, Carl is asked by his somewhat naive sister Annabelle to look into a murder where everyone suspects a friend of hers. A leader in the local band was home stabbed to death at a neighbor's, and signs point to the man's wife as the killer, but then a witness ends up dead under suspictious circumstances. He then does some more probing into the dead musician and beds yet another widow. In the end, he finds that nothing is as deadly as a mother's love for her child, and brings the true killer to justice.

Adams is not widely available in my native UK and I cannot say I am experiencing any sense of cultural deprivation if this entry in the Carl Wilcox series is typical of its quality.
Wilcox has had a colourful past--veteran of WW1,former convict and now an itinerant sign painter in the Mid West in the Great Depression and a man who has established a reputation as a sskilled investigator Why then does he come across as so dull in the book?
He is asked by a relative in North Dakota to dig up evidence that will exonerate a friend who is suspected of murdering her husband.Suspects are not exactly scarce--there is the nubile neighbour and her mildly retarded daughter;his partner in a clothing store known to be resentful of the deceased's less than hands on approach to business,and members of a dance band he once lead some of whom feel they are being held back by his less than dynamic leadership
Wilcox questions suspects,sleeps around with several female charcters and teaches his nephew to fight and bored me into a light coma in the process
Turgid,Unexciting .No sense of place or period.
Its boring and no condemnation can be more damning

It's a good time for Harold Adams, whose novels about itinerent sign painter ex-cop Carl Wilcox had been languishing, garnering critical raves but little in the way of sales. Walker & Company, a publishing house becoming known for literate, sometimes off-beat mysteries, has released four books so far in trade paperback and published new ones in hardback. This is a series well worth investigating.

Wilcox reminds me of every boy's favorite uncle, the one who's a black sheep to the women of the family for not settling down, who stops by when he needs a bed and a few square meals, bringing with him a whiff of sin and a few great stories. He travels the small towns of the Dakotas and Minnesota during the Depression, taking on sign-painting jobs for grocery stores and law offices when they're available, and camping by the side of the road in his modified Model T. When the jobs are few on the ground, he'll take on a murder investigation.

In "A Way with Widows," his sister asks him to come to Red Ford, North Dakota, to help clear a neighbor of killing her husband, who was found on the stairs of another woman's house. In "No Badge, No Gun," a minister who has heard of Wilcox's reputation as an investigator asks him to solve the murder of his niece, found dead in the basement of a church. Wilcox's investigating style consists of wandering around town, talking to people, gathering threads of facts and weaving them into a plausible story. He's suspicious, but not cynical. Told about the perfect character of a churchgoing man, he observes, "Nothing in this world raises more doubts in my mind than apparently perfect young men."

Yet Wilcox is also a flawed man. He makes mistakes and is perfectly capable of being turned by a pretty widow with something to hide. His attempts at seduction sometimes succeed, but more often fail, which makes sense at a time when a woman's reputation could be affected by who she's seen with.

One hopes for better things for Adams and Wilcox, but if it doesn't happen, it won't be the fault of the publisher. Like most of Walker's books, these are beautiful to look at -- details from Edward Hopper's paintings appear on most of them, which is a nice change from the usual blood and skulls that passes for art on most mystery covers -- and the $8.95 price tag is more than reasonable for these absorbing tales of small-town crimes of passion.

Although this book certainly has artistic merit, I would not have called it the "Best of". We have visited the area many times and are well aware of the various terrains. In some cases, the photographer seemed to choose the "ugliest of" and in even more cases, the photos could have been taken anywhere - there was nothing to indicate a particular location. Examples would be an animal running across an empty field. Fine if you're looking for nature, not very useful if you are trying to identify "Best of"/beautiful spots to visit. This was a gift for my husband and he was not very impressed...

This book has very enchanting photography. If you love nature, but are locked up in city life; This is a very nice book to have just to linger in and daydream of the wide open spaces. Of course it may get addictive and make you leave the city in search of a peaceful homestead to call home...

Dakota Diaspora is a lovely book which tells of the author's experiences as a child growing up Jewish on the prairie. From Russia to "Nordakota" Ms. Trupin attempts to understand her parents and their motivations for leaving the "known" for such a great "unknown." She draws mostly upon her own childhood memories, rather than gathering first-hand accounts from her parents. I found the ending somewhat disappointing because we don't find out if the author was able to maintain her Yiddishkeit, which her mother was so concerned that the children would lose without a strong Jewish community. A great book for those looking for a good biography. As a Torah-seeking Kansan, I appreciated reading about a turn-of-the-century Jewish family who departed from the well trodden paths to New York and Chicago in order to live on the land AND maintain a Torah lifestyle.

Having spent 15 years in North Dakota, I was looking forward to some insights into the lives of Jewish migrants to a difficult world. This book describes some aspects of their experience, mainly fascinating domestic incidents well worth preserving. Unfortunately, the book lacks a scene-setting introduction or epilogue to place her story in Eastern European and Midwestern history. What happeened to Sopie and her family after these events? Who are the others mentioned in the acknowledgements? The Rachel Calof memoir, which closely parallels this one, is a model of its kind and can be highly recommended.

This book was updated and reprinted in 2001.

A must for the spearfishing angler. Runs through the history, methods, and stories about darkhouse spearfishing. If you want to know about this sport, this is the only place to go.

This is one of the best, if not THE best, book about what led to the Great Sioux uprising that ultimately caused the destruction of the Great Sioux Nation, the U.S. government banishment to current abysmal reservations and their descent into depression and humiliation, widespread alcoholism and drug addiction and ultimately near genocide. Well documented, well written and comprehensive details of Wavoka's vision and subsequent dissemination of the Ghost Dance, adopted by many Native American tribes, which caused great fear in official Washington as well as the general western white population.

Mooney's study is often fascinating, although one has to wonder how objective and disinterested someone can be who refers to his subject as "this pathetic cult."

The author sifts thru numerous Lakota, Cheyenne, and White accounts of the Battle of the Little Bighorn in an attempt to come up with an accounting of the Native American casualties in that battle. Those accounts are often incomplete, contradictory, or altered in various ways by the White interviewers of these veterans. And in some cases the interviews were conducted many decades after the events described. Indeed, some of the Native participants lived into the 1940s and 50s and were still offering memories even then to various interviewers about who was killed when and where. The author concludes that a total of 31 Indian men were killed in the Custer and Reno engagements of this battle. That seems a ludicrously low number, given that several thousand targets were on the field and that several hundred troopers were firing on them. It suggests both superior tactics on the part of the Indians and inferior marksmanship and a breakdown of command on the part of the troopers.

The old story is quickly retold using Indian witnesses to flesh out some specific who shot whom, threading the Red man's perspectives, and recollections with the often-quoted white man's. He disputes Marquis's mass suicide theories, citing contrary statements given Marquis, by his same sources. Hardorff takes a page from Gray, compiling charts of Indian casualties with witness lists, and tribal affiliations. However, it was at least 20 years after the battle before any of the Indian casualty lists were compiled. In the final table, I noticed that later interviews reported lower and lower average casualty numbers. It left me with the feeling that we still do not have a definitive picture of the Indian losses. I admire the hard work that went into this book, and can recommend it to serious Custerphiles.

descent photography, I feel as though if you are going to say "Jim Dow in North Dakota" the photos should be only from ND and not the surrounding states. If you are from ND you may not like it.

Jim Dow has done us all a favor with his remarkable book of photos. In the final chapter called Dreaming and Redemption he says `Those unfamiliar with North Dakota habitually say that it is cold, boring, flat, desolate and empty -- inadequate generalizations that simply don't hold up'. Just look through the 185 color photos several times and the Peace Garden State will grow on you and although none of the photos contain people you really feel their presence.

One of the strengths of the book is the editorial flow. Rather than just run page after page of photos here the work is divided into eight chapters each with a page introduction. Some are quite short like the first one: Views of North Dakota, which surprisingly is made up of twelve shots of the inside walls of the state penitentiary where bad guy Charles Olive, murderer and sign painter created a series of murals showing the North Dakota landscape. The Marking the Land chapter has thirty-seven photos of man-made signs, rusting agricultural machinery (deliberately left as a mark on the landscape) and larger than life animal statues. Artists and Workplace chapter (sixty photos) features workshops, bars, retail interiors and commercial architecture. Religious Life (twenty photos) reflects the diverse nature of grave markers and church buildings found in the State.

Although I have a paperback copy (2500 printed according to the imprint) I think it could be considered a book of coffee table proportions, well printed in an impressively fine screen and unusual for a photo book it has an index, too. I would only fault this book of photos in the way captions have been handled. Like many photo books they are at the back with a thumbnail and page number when nearly all the text would easily fit under the relevant images.

I think Jim Dow's impressive photos reveal a lot more of North Dakota than the predictable cold, boring and flat cliché.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.