Oklahoma Books

Helen C. Rountree has done very good research & writes in such a way that it's interesting.

It has been a while since I read this book, but remember that I found it very informative on a broad variety of western training questions, and can recommend it for anyone who wants to add to their western training library.

The main reason I'm writing this review is to see if there is someone out there who might be able to recommend a book to me... I have been searching for a good book that focuses mainly on training and using the Bosal Hackamore. So far, I've had no luck. Perhaps someone out there knows of such a book and could post it here for me! I'd be tickled to come back here and see such a recommendation! Thanks for your kind attention!

Ms Debo's fictional tale includes stories of the city where I live. Family names are familiar and it is interesting to drive around the area and imagine what life was like in that period. For those of you used to Ms Debo's more scholarly works, you will enjoy this book.

Mr. Edwards has collected excerpts from letters, diaries, newspapers, Official Reports, and other eyewitness accounts to document more than 100 hostile actions in the Indian Territory during the Late Unpleasantness. His "Introduction" is the best summary of the war in the Indian Territory that I've read in a long time. This book belongs in the library of any serious student of the Civil War and will be a "great read" for those who are only casually interested.

This book exemplifies Hildegard Delgado Pang's gift for sharing appreciation of both ancient and modern cultures. It is beautifully illustrated and includes detailed drawings by the author. While the research and documentation of ancient art is meticulous, the author does not neglect the connections between past and contemporary cultures. Her sensitivity to both brings depth to this subject that far surpasses the triviality of viewing artifacts as separate novelties.

I know of no finer collection of relevant views on our current and prospective foreign policy challenges. In the foreword to the book, William Crowe, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and then Ambassador to the Court of Saint James, observes that "A reappreciation of government is also in order." He clearly articulates both the range of challenges facing us (most of them non-military in nature), and the disconnect between how we organize our government and how we need to successfully engage.

His bottom line is clear: we are not spending enough on the varied elements of national security, with special emphasis on a severely under-funded and under-manned diplomatic service.

From Gaddis Smith and Walter Mondale to Sam Nunn and Robert Oakley, from David Gergen to David Abshire to David Boren, from Kissinger to Brzezinski to Kirkpatrick, in combination with a whole host of lesser known but equally talented practitioners, capped off by comments from five Directors of Central Intelligence, this books sets a standard for organized high quality reflection on the future of U.S. foreign policy.

Most interestingly, there is general consensus with David Abshire's view that we are in a strategic interregnum, and still lacking for a policy paradigm within which to orchestrate our varied efforts to define and further our vital interests.

David Gergen clearly articulates the shortfalls in our national educational, media, and political patterns that leave the vast majority of Americans ignorant of our foreign interests and unsupportive of the need for proactive engagement abroad. Reading this book, I could not help but feel that our national educational system is in crisis, and we need both a wake-up call and a consequent national investment program such as occurred after the first Sputnik launch.

David Boren is clearly a decade or more ahead of most current commentators in his call for a new paradigm, for a new analytical framework, for the internationalization of American education across the board. I am reminded of the quotation from early America: "A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry." Interestingly, he cites Daniel Boorstein's caution that we must not confuse information with knowledge, and in the next sentence notes: "I watched during my term as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee while the CIA greatly increased its information, its raw data, but became overwhelmed and unable to separate the important from the unimportant."

I would itemize just a few of the many, many useful insights that this book offers:

1) Diplomacy is the sum total of familiarity with the role, knowledge of the component parts of the overall national security policy, and the ability to design and implement comprehensive policies that achieve the national objectives;

2) Politicians and policy-makers are losing the ability to think objectively and act with conviction...they are too dependent on short-term domestic polling and opinion;

3) (Quoting Donald Kegan): Power without the willingness to use it does not contribute to world peace;

4) We must strengthen the domestic roots of national power if we are to have a sound strategy;

5) Future of U.S. education and strength of U.S. family unit will quite simply determine whether U.S. can meet the economic challenges of the 21st Century;

6) Our domestic insecurity and domestic violence-and resulting foreign perceptions and disrespect for our competence at home-reduce our effectiveness overseas;

7) U.S. is its own worst enemy, with declining attention to foreign policy matters;

8) Weapons of mass destruction are our only substantive vital interest today;

9) Hunger, pestilence, and refugees within Africa will affect all nations;

10) Corruption has replaced guerrilla movements as the principal threat to democratic governance;

11) Commerce rather than conflict will be the primary concern of 21st century foreign policy;

12) The environment joins trade and commerce as an essential objective for foreign policy;

13) Long-term non-military challenges, and especially global financial markets, require refocusing of our security perspectives;

14) Asia will edge out Europe as our primary trading partner;

15) China in Asia and Turkey in the West are linch-pin nations;

16) NATO will survive but we must take care not to threaten Russia;

17) The UN is not very effective at peacekeeping operations-it is best confined to idea exchanges;

18) Our military is over-extended and under-funded but still the best in the world;

19) For the cost of one battalion or one expensive piece of military equipment, one thousand new Foreign Service officers could be added toward preventive diplomacy;

20) Lessons from the Roman empire: its decline results in part from a loss of contact with its own heartlands, a progressive distancing of the elite from the populace, the elevation of the military machine to the summit of the power hierarchy, and blindness in perceiving the emergence of societies motivated by nationalism or new religious ideologies; and

21) We may need a new National Security Act.

If I had one small critical comment on the book is would be one of concern-concern that these great statesmen and scholars appear-even while noting that defense is under-capitalized-to take U.S. military competence at face value. I perceive a really surprising assumption across a number of otherwise brilliant contributions to the effect that we do indeed have all that we need in the way of information dominance, precision firepower, and global mobility (strategic lift plus forward presence)-we just need to use it with greater discretion. I do not believe this to be the case. I believe-and the Aspin-Brown Commission so stated-that we lack effective access to the vast range of global multi-lingual open sources; that our commitment to precision munitions is both unaffordable and ineffective (we ran out in 8 days in the Gulf, in 3 days in Kosovo); and that we fail terribly with respect to mobility-naval forces are generally 4-6 days from anywhere, rather than the necessary 24-48 hours. This book is a very fine starting point for the national dialogue that must take place in 2001 regarding our new national security strategy.

A fascinating read of pre-Lewis and Clark explorations into the upper Missouri River Basin from its earliest beginnings, with the main focus on the 1795-1797 Mackay-Evans expedition.
Most people have never heard of Scotsman James Mackay and Welshman John Evans, but if it wasn't for their efforts in cartography and ethnology, the celebrated Lewis and Clark expedition would have been quite hampered in its early stages.
When the Louisana Territory was still under Spanish rule, Mackay became a naturalized citizen and Evans swore allegiance to Spain. Their responsibilities to Spain included exploring, mapping and locating a route to the Pacific for trade possibilities, evicting British traders in its territory and promoting Indian intertribal peace to further enhance trade with Spain. Evans' primary objective in accepting this offer was to locate the mythological Welsh Indians whose original Welsh ancestors were suppose to have settled in mid-America during the year 1170 AD.

Although not a completely successful mission, the Mackay-Evans expedition did produce maps of the upper Missouri which Lewis and Clark referred to on numerous occasions and opened understandings of Missouri River Indian cultures and customs.
Dr. Wood effectively sifts through the available journals and maps of Mackay and Evans, along with other pertinent papers and charts of the day, to make this an exciting work.

I am so glad to find this title and order it. Although it's been years since I read this book while a student at the U.S. Army Intelligence School, its impact on my awareness of propaganda and allied persuasive activities has stayed with me. The author, an insider in the campaign to trick the U.S. into joining Britain in WWI, covers in detail the various levels and means of deception employed by the British, and coordinated by a single committee charged with succeeding in bringing the US into the war. Financial bondage (because the British purposely set out to borrow so much of our money that we could not afford to let them lose), lecturers and actors on tour circuits around our country, political intrigues, "spin-doctored" news and propaganda, planting a fake diplomatic telegram, the Lusitania affair, and, of course, Colonel House, the anglophile counselor to Wilson's White House, were some of the ploys used.

Providing accurate and timely information to the public during periods of emergency or disaster is a vital part of emergency management. This book discusses the important areas of public information from pre-incident planning to response. It starts with an overview of public information, the media, and the role of public information. It provides guidance on how to provide information and news releases, help for setting up press conferences, and suggestions for presentations to community groups. Some of the forms illustrated in the book are included in Adobe PDF format on a disk inside the back cover. The forms can be printed on either a Windows or Mac computer or they can be modified to suit your circumstances. While the book is written and intended for the fire service, the information it contains can be adapted to other disciplines easily. Its size and format make it convenient to carry on a command vehicle for use when ncessary.

Throughout the 1600s settlers from central Mexico migrated north into today's New Mexico, settling along the Rio Grande where the Pueblo Indians had long resided. With them came Franciscan friars whose chief goal was to convert the Pueblos to Christianity and establish missions. Two main practices leveled against the Indians that fostered resentment and eventual rebellion was the encomienda (forcing the Indians to pay tribute to the Spaniards, usually in maize or manual labor) and the friars' insistence on the Indians abandoning totally their native religious ceremonies (the kiva, for instance) and adopting Christian ways. Abuses developed in both practices until a unified uprising among the Indians against the settlers occurred in 1680, where hundreds of colonists and over 20 friars were killed, and thereby emptying the province of all Spanish settlers. Property and churches were destroyed by the Indians, and for 12 years the Pueblos were free from Spanish rule, even presence.

In 1692, however, under the leadership of Diego de Vargas, the Spaniards returned, and over the next few years, using mainly diplomacy but also arms when necessary, re-established their authority. Churches and missions were rebuilt and Santa Fe (pretty much in ruins) was forcefully retaken from the Indians. Many of the Indians were still resentful, of course, and by 1696 another revolt was in the making. As time went on, the Friars became very much aware of this imminent rebellion and wrote letters to Vargas pleading for better military security and warning him of the dangers that were brewing. This book collects a number of those letters, and to read them is to feel the despair felt by the friars; some prepared themselves for martyrdom. Open rebellion erupted in June 1696 (some of the atrocities suffered by the friars are revealed in further letters collected here), but swift action by Vargas and a less-than-unified Indian action ended the revolt by late summer, with Spanish control assured.

The book consists of a long and very useful historical introduction about life along the northern Rio Grande up to 1700, and sections of letters written mostly by the friars and missionaries concerning the re-establishment of the missions after 1692, the warnings and pleas to Vargas, and then first-hand accounts of the revolt of 1696 itself. Most of the letters and documents come from archival repositories in Mexico City and Spain. It's a fascinating account and the immediacy of the dangers felt by the writers, even to the point of assuming their own deaths as they performed their sacred duties, packs quite an emotional wallop. Highly recommended to anyone interested in the Spanish-Indian relationship in early New Mexico.