Montana Books

The guide is the best I've found, but it's not a stand alone resource. It's more comprehensive and with better comparison tables than the older "Hiking the Bitteroots." However, it lacks good mapping. If you're gonna use this guidebook, also get the two plastic topo maps of the Selway Bitteroot Wilderness from the Forest Service.

This book is a good layman's introduction to the history of the Northern Cheyenne people. It's a quick and easy read, 212 pages of text mingled with many maps and pictures, and provides a good overview of Cheyenne history from the beginnings of the archaeological record to the mid-1970s when the book was first published.

If you're not looking for a detailed history but desire an overview of Cheyenne history, then this book has only two shortcomings. First, no mention is made about the Southern Cheyenne after the fallout from the Sand Creek Massacre, and there is no discussion of the settlement of the Southern Cheyennes onto the Cheyenne-Arapaho Reservation in western Oklahoma. The Southern Cheyennes have as rich and storied a history as their Northern brethren, but their treatment in this work makes its title a misnomer.

The second criticism I have is that while the book treats historical events with reasonable objectivity to about the mid-1960s, after that point it changes tone and seems more like an exercise in cheerleading the Northern Cheyenne people's then-recent accomplishments. The final section of the book, entitled "Self-government," is written in a style expressing wonder and awe at the astonishing survival of these people and how now that they're in control of their own affairs, more or less without BIA interference, the future is entirely and exclusively rosy and bright. Given the events of the thirty years since this book was first published and the state of the Northern Cheyenne people and the Reservation community today, this section is cast in a tone if irony and sadness.

Given that the book was published by a non-profit organization with the mission of providing teacher training and materials to enhance Native American education, this tone is understandable. Fulfilling this mission no doubt required certain political finesse, and gaining the goodwill and cooperation of the Tribal government was probably so crucial that it colored the entire editorial process. While perhaps the end does justify the means, this does allow for the creation of some very unrealistic expectations on the nature of the Reservation community today. Of course, this book is a history, not a travel guide or sociological or anthropological treatise.

The book is, as I have said, a sketch. Proper historians will probably object to the lack of detail, and how the act of turning the page makes whole decades rush by. As a succinct introduction to the subject, however, it is very suitable, particularly given the paucity of other works in the field.

I've read many of Diana Palmer's book and well this one was not very different. Since its more like a short story, it doesn't get that well developed.

Story is about a mom (Maggie) who moves out to Montana with her son. The nearest neighbor (Tate) is almost untouchable after he lost his family. However, Maggie is able to win his heart and build her own family with Tate.

Since the story is very short, the character's personalities don't have a chance to develop. However, you can see from the short amount of time that Maggie is very devoted towards her son and Tate is very passionate and somewhat innocent.

A cute story. If you like Diana Palmer, this one should be a quick, good read.

Read this book when I was a girl and loved it. A book about a cowgirl who helps save the ranch when her father falls ill. Oddly modern in it's message that even a girl can save the day. Full of action and adventure.

This book was composed by a friend of the subject some twenty years ago but not published till 2002. But it is not hagiographical even though the author, now deceased, knew Jeannette Rankin. Most people know that Rankin voted against war twice--even though she only served two terms in the House, having been elected in 1916 to her first term--the first woman elected to Congress--and then elected to her second term in 1940. So when Pearl Harbor was bombed she was the only person who voted against war--though a few days later she voted for war against Germany. She was somewhat eccentric and was active in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam era though not in full sync with the moving spirits in that endeavor. She lived on till she was almost 93, active and forceful till the end. While the book has no footnotes and is kind of amateurishly written it tells an interesting story, and gives a fuller picture of an amazing woman than most folks have had hitherto.

After reading "Killing Is My Specialty" I had to get Carlson's sequel on my recent trip through Wyoming. I found it in a bookstore in West Yellowstone, MT, leaving plenty of Wyoming time to read it.

Between the Horn book and the Lefors book, a mock trial had been held in Cheyenne wherein Horn was acquitted.

Although both books appear to be very well documented, I couldn't help but feel that Carlson may have a bit of bias in favor of Horn and against Lefors. Not being part of the Wyoming culture, it may be unfair to make that characterization, but it's what I felt.

An eminently readable book; not to be read without having read about Tom Horn first; preferably Carlson's account.

Scholars will appreciate the ten years of research the author put into gathering the 33 firsthand accounts (diaries and reminiscences) of travels on the Bozeman Trail, the last of the western emigrant trails. The rest of us can vicariously enjoy the pleasures and endure the ordeals of the overland trips by reading the direct words of the intrepid travelers. In their quest for the fastest route to the gold fields, the emigrants went through land ceded to the Native Americans by treaty, and were the catalyst for the Indian Wars of the 1860's and 1870's. This effectively closed the trail in 1866. This two volume set includes annotations, and illustrations, maps and photographs, appendices and a glossary, and excellent overview and afterword, as well as introductions to each year the trail was used, and each diary. Doyle has done a truly impressive job of locating and editing the materials, and presenting them in a most useful and readable way. Fans of books such as THE PERFECT STORM and INTO THIN AIR might like to compare the feats of these earlier adventurers. Many of the men, women, and children who emigrated via the Bozeman and other trails had already moved from somewhere else. A restless bunch, "they traveled west because they could".

ISBN 0140368027 - For the "watch every word your kid reads" set, there's a "crap" and a "damn"... for more relaxed folks, good book. Not great, but good. With a few pictures from the movie scattered throughout the book, it's a nice tie-in.

Matt's family is moving to the place where his mother grew up - in the middle of nowhere. It doesn't sound all that great to Matt, who likes living in Baltimore. Besides, his mother is dead and his stepmother, Laura, is never going to be able to fill her shoes. Still, Matt's got no vote in things - they're going. Along the way, the family picks up a collie who gets named Lassie by Matt's sister, a fan of the old TV show. Lassie latches onto Matt from the beginning. When they get to their new home, every bad thing Matt had imagined doesn't compare to the sight of the dump they'll be living in. Lassie leads Matt to bits and scraps of his mother's life when she was a child in the house, and it's her diary that gives him the idea that saves the family when Matt's father's job falls through. Now determined to stay, Matt gets his mother's father to help him convince his parents that they can make a sheep farm work. And Lassie? Lassie always saves the day.

The reference to vanilla Cokes, as opposed to Vanilla Cokes, is kind of fun. I wish there'd been a little more about Matt's mother. After all, he's making her childhood dream come true and it IS her father who helps them. In fact, the only glaring negative for me was that no one ever really made a point of pointing out to Matt that his grandfather accepted Laura even when Matt couldn't. Other than that, just a nice book, not comparable to the old Lassie books, but still a good intro for young fans.

Legacy: New Perspectives on the Battle of the Little Bighorn is an endlessly fascinating book. A collection of essays, it draws on historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, rhetoricians, and art historians to explain why, in the words of Richard Slotkin, author of the essay, "Signifying on the Little Bighorn," ". . . we are, 120 years after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, still talking about Custer and Sitting Bull, Reno and Crazy Horse. Still asking what happened and why?" (287). Overall, the tone of the book is unrepentantly new historical reflecting the essence of its genesis - an interdisciplinary conference where a mixed bag of scholars explored exactly what Little Bighorn means to America. This "lonely place that haunts American conscious," (xiii) as the editor Charles Rankin writes in his lucid prose, allows both sides both Old West and New West historians to project upon it however they want. The battle can be seen in these essays as a life or death struggle for either the noble savages or the Old West heroes. The truth becomes obscured and unattainable by the level of emotion that Americans (both Native and Anglo) have heaped upon the event since its occurrence. In the search to see how the battle has helped to shape America both culturally and historically, Anglo and Indian views are balanced. We see both sides transforming their opponents into the "other", dehumanizing them, making them evil and thus, easy to kill.
The first part of the book, "The Context" is lacking just that. Over and over the essays leave one asking, "what?" The essays, ranging in topic from buffalo population distribution to the alignment of certain tribes with Custer are interesting, but perhaps too technical and field-specific for the proceedings of an interdisciplinary conference.
Alvin Josepy Jr's essay in "The Context," "Indian Policy and the Battle of Little Bighorn", wears its biases on its sleeve. At the beginning of essay, Josephy writes, "At the heart of the Indian-white relations. . . lay the most simple of facts. . . the whites wanted the Indians' lands and resources, and most Indians did not want to give them up." (23) Later Josephy makes the inference that Custer "deserved" his death. Dogma aside, Josephy presents the best contextual paper. Reading it prepares the readers for the rest of the essays. Josephy makes good points, making the case that the battle at Little Bighorn was the result of unbelievable pressure on the Indians. They had been given the choice of assimilation or death and many chose death. Many felt they had no choice. They had been cheated in treaties. Even the treaties that had been less unfair were routinely ignored when it suited the white man. Railroads cut off the tribes from their traditional hunting grounds. Josephy brings out the mess and Constitutional violations created when Grant set up an all Quaker board to run certain reservations and help form Indian policy.
The overwhelming metaphor used by authors in these essays is Vietnam. Both Vietnam and Little Bighorn are military actions much debated, much mid-understood, and much mythologized. That mytholgizing continues even today. In this book, there is a great deal of de-mythologizing in these essays, presenting the Indian Wars not as epic struggles of good versus bad but simple battles of survival. We are encouraged to reconsider the French-Indian wars as precursors of the Indian Trouble with their complex intertribal rivalries and friendship and veiled business interests. However, Calloway, in his essay "Army Allies or Tribal Survival", goes too far by making the suggestion that the American soldiers and American Indians may have been class allies rather than racial rivals.(66)
Part II starts with quite a bit about translation theory and why written accounts are privileged over the Indians oral accounts. However, I would have liked to have seen the idea that it may not have been such a bias against orality but as a bias against the victors. After all, American soldiers eyewitness accounts (even in Vietnam we have the trust of the grunts stories over the untrustworthy reports filed by their assumedly corrupt superiors) have always been acceptable as basically truthful and accurate by the US public and press.
Part III opens with "What Valor Is" and that essay that concentrates on what, it seems the whole book is about, "the intricate interplay between fact and fiction". Focusing on the way art can reinforce cultural myths, it's an interesting essay that exemplifies the focus of this book with its focus on fields other than traditional history.
Overall, Legacy, through its interdisciplinary approach, succeeds in making us realize just how much the events of the genocidal Indian wars were interrelated with other American events. The Civil War is one example that is properly fleshed out. In the aftermath of the Civil War Congress wasn't able to work effectively with Indian concerns because of Reconstruction and problems with President Johnson (27). It was the "hard war" practice perfected by Union officers like Sheridan and Sherman on his march though Georgia that eventually brought the Indians to their knees. The influence of the railroad and the its influence on the army's actions and Custer's gold-seeking foray into he Black Hills are equally well-developed. A book like Legacy takes the Battle of Little Bighorn from the narrow perspective of most Americans view and places it in a complete historical context. The book shows the connections between the different events that took place in and those that affected the American West and shows the one connecting factor-the drive to develop commerce and the crushing of those who stood in its way.

This book is ostensibly a collection of letters written by the author and his sister to the author's grandchildren. I am sure that is an accurate representation. The purpose was to record for the youngsters the life that the great grandparents and their offspring lived on a homestead in southeastern Montana. I was raised in the same county as the Ambuels; my sister was born the same year (1918) as Philip Ambuel. The descriptions of life on a homestead of that time and place are accurate in every detail and will not be found in many other sources. The format makes the telling very personal and enjoyable. It also makes the readability somewhat varied, but not objectionable. This book is important as a historical record as well as a good way to enjoy an afternoon