Nebraska Books

My gratitude to Dr. Peace for writing this biography of Leslie A. White is tremendous. I am not a professional in the social sciences, although I discovered Leslie White's writings in the early 1970's while attending college. To say they intrigued me is an understatement. On and off through my whole life I studied White's writings, and followed up on many of his sources, such as Emile Durkheim.

Not being a professional in the social sciences, and being so 'taken in' by White's theories and rhetoric, I wondered considerably about how White's writings were received in his own field, that is anthropology. In my questioning of various professors I learned that White was 'a Marxist', and left unsaid was the supposition that 'therefore - should be disregarded'. This never set well with me, as I was totally convinced of the validity of his arguements, irregardless of their ultimate intellectual source.

Basically, I read this book from cover to cover in two or three days over the Thanksgiving holiday of 2007. It answered all my questions about Leslie White. It portrays the picture of a brilliant man pursuing in single minded determination his desire to understand the human condition. I'd very highly recommend this book to anyone like myself who wishes to understand and learn about this brilliant man. Thank you very much Dr. Peace!

Author Peace has done a masterful job in exploring the work of this eccentric and complicated anthropoligist.
His work and personality are examined and startling facts sensitively revealed.
It is well written, informative and shows a true understanding of the man's personality and brillaint theories.
Well worth reading!
Kathy Boncuk

In Peace's preface he writes of anthropology's historians Geo Stocking and Dick Handler "failures to consider the political beliefs and actions" of the anthropologists they chronicle--a charge that well summarizes the central devastating shortcoming of the history of anthropology for the past 30 years. This biography goes a long ways towards suggesting how anthropologists can reintegrate politics back into their disciplinary histories. Peace builds an interesting historical account of White and establishes the deep impact of Marx and socialism on White's life and theory.

The other reviews offered of this excellent biography cover much of the relevant historical details included in the book, but I wanted to add a comment or two about what I see as another strength of this biography: Krohn reveals Louise Pound's "humanity" very effectively. As the other reviewers stated, this biography is an excellent piece of scholarship and is meticulously researched. Krohn also manages to use this scholarship to reveal Louise Pound as a person - Pound's character and personality shine through the historical details of her life. Pound is revealed to the reader as a complex and fascinating person, rather than as a 2-dimensional collection of accomplishments. As I read, I felt like I was getting to know a fascinating person, and I was drawn into the story of her life. I loved the extended correspondence between Pound and her friend Ani. Even though we only "hear" Ani's letters and not Pound's replies, Krohn was somehow able to use these conversations to reveal Pound's character. This book should obviously be read by anyone interested in Louise Pound, but also by anyone interested in biographies and how well-written biographies invite us into fascinating lives using historical detail rather than fictionalizations.

I just finished reading Marie Krohn's well-researched and comprehensive biography on the personal and professional lives of noted Nebraskan Louise Pound. I couldn't wait to offer my hearty "congratulations" to the author for her superb work. I was completely hooked from page one and very much enjoyed the historical tours, the biographical information not only on the Pound family, but on so many "celebrities" from Lincoln's past. Having resided in Lincoln, NE for fifteen years, many of the curiosities I had about the names on university, civic and local school buildings were clarified as I was able to connect those names with influential Nebraskans.

The retrospective of the University of Nebraska academically, socially and politically was wonderful and offered information that I am very delighted to know, particularly since I am an alumnus. I can appreciate the fact that even world class professors like Louise Pound had to endure protracted oppressions of their ideas, work, and their successes. It must have frustrated her to be renowned the world 'round, but have limited homage on the University of Nebraska campus - particularly by the colleagues within her own department! I have immense respect for Dr. Pound for many reasons, not the least of which was her perseverance at and fond commitment to the University of Nebraska.

The author was most diligent in her commitment to accurate scholarship in writing a comprehensive, clear and poignant book. Because the author's research processes were very thorough, the book's scope also included much insight into world and domestic events as they intertwined with the Pound family spanning from the post-Civil War era through the mid-1960s. This is a must read for literary aficionados, biography buffs, Nebraskans, and anyone who will appreciate thorough research coupled with a very readable writing style.

Marie Krohn has eloquently introduced the world to Louise Pound and she has provided us with the unique opportunity to learn about Nebraska from Louise Pound's point-of-view. It was a truly delightful read and it very much broadened my Nebraska horizons.

An iconoclast is defined as one who attacks and seeks to change traditional or popular ideas or institutions, and Louise Pound certainly qualifies as a 19th century iconoclast.

With a moving foreword by Dr. Robert Cochran, Marie Krohn's tribute to Louise Pound is the first comprehensive biography of this remarkable frontier woman. Pound's relative anonymity over the past half century is likely a result of the public riffs with her employer, the University of Nebraska, where her outspoken and opinionated nature disturbed administrators and resulted in their downplaying her legacy.

This meticulously researched biography offers insights into a true American pioneer. Her accomplishments reflect her resolve to achieve absolute excellence in all her endeavors, and condemn collective mediocrity, often at the expense of her relationships or career.

Whether her accomplishments were in sports (she was a world class athlete in tennis and golf), or in academia, her achievements were extraordinary by any standard. Realizing the importance of an advanced degree, she traveled to Germany to earn a Ph.D. in only one year. (Most students required two years). She collaborated with H.L. Menken, and was the first to advocate that American English should be studied separate from that spoken in Great Britain... a revolutionary idea at the time. She became an internationally recognized philologist, folklorist and pioneer in the origins or American speech.

Despite many feminists who ascribe to the theory that Louise Pound was the lesbian love interest of famed author Willa Cather, Krohn explains in convincing style that the evidence neither supports or sustains such claims.

Although scholarly in its scope, it's approach is neither stuffy or verbose. This very readable biography will provide encouragement and motivation to today's iconoclasts who are looking for a fresh and inspiring role model.

I loved John R. Erickson's 1981 1st end edition of this book and wondered if the 2nd edition would live up to standards set by the first edition. I was not disappointed. Erickson gives a unique insight to cowboying. The chapters "Economics and the Cowboy" and "The Cowboys Wife" are in themselves enough to make this book a unique contribution to Western American literature.

I have only one small complaint about Erickson's work. That is that he gives feedyard cowboys the short shrift. His only discussion of them is a few condensending comments in "The Last Cowboy" chapter. He says he doesn't mean to disparage them and yet turns around and does just that. A book about "THE Modern Cowboy" needs a thorough treatment of feedyard cowboys. Moreover the distinction between feedyard cowboys and ranch cowboys is largely an artificial separation that exists only in Erickson's mind. The majority of feedyard cowboys that I've worked with have worked ranches and you will find quite a few ranch cowboys on the Great Plains who have put in their time in the feedyards. However, I would not let this one oversight of Erickson's keep me from reccommending this book to anyone and everyone.

Now in its second edition, The Modern Cowboy strives to answer the query: who is the American cowboy? Where did he come from, and what is he today? Digging deep into American history, legend, and practical reality, as well as taking a solid look at the contemporary lives led today by men responsible for the welfare of cattle, The Modern Cowboy is a superb source of background material for anyone who truly wants to know more about the legendary figure who appears in so many Western novels and movies. Highly recommended both for entertainment and personal edification.

I just finished reading The Modern Cowboy by John Erickson. It is a very good book about the life of the American cowboy. Erickson covers every aspect of the cowboy working on a ranch in our country. He not only covers the day to day life of the cowboy, he gives the reader a view of what is in the future for cowboys and ranching. A great book.

A wonderfuilly constructed and well written history on a subject most Southerners prefer not to talk about. That is a shame because there was little shame in it as men went home to protect their families and farms from advancing Yankee armies. The CSA government recognized this as a rationale when they issued an amnesty program to get the men back. However, once home, many of them faced missing families, destroyed homnes and more, and thus turned to theft. Ultimately, however, these men tended to collect into small irregular units that fed off the local population creating a dangerous situation. Not only did the lack of troops in the armies handicap efforts to"keep the cause alive", so did these irregular bands of deserters by turning the population against the CSA government, and by using local regular troops to hunt them down.

A nicely crafted history that needed to be written.

It often seems that no real new information can be found on the Civil War as it is THE most written about event in our nation's short history. Mark Weitz however has done just that, taken a subject, and wrote an authoritative tome on it.

Desertion is a subject that has seen little serious investigation done, especially on the Confederate side, for several decades. This is a subject that has deserved more work, especially for its effects on the fledgling Confederate nation. In the past, desertion has been at best covered on how it affected states (Alabama gets a very good book covering it's trials on the home front in "McMillians's Disintgration of a Confederate State") and seldom anything approaching a war wide study.

Weitz has done this and in a convincing way to show how desertion become a cyclic monster feeding and growing as it was either ignored or coddled by both state and federal (CS government) entities and the onset of lawlessness on the home front encouraged it. With few exceptions, officers/officials in the CS government tended to be at least sympathetic towards deserters, witness the constant offers of pardon/blanket amnesty that the CS trotted out every few months. While there were officers who shot deserters, they were few in the over all context of the war. The CS had thousands, if not tens of thousands of men who were multiple deserters. Captured or cajoled to return to duty, these men often wasted little time before deserting again. It was a problem that saw armies of deserters in many regions of the South by the end of the war. This was despite, desperately needed CSA soldiers being sent to root out deserters throughout the South during the war.

Weitz argues that many of these men deserted because of the broken social contract between them and those that stayed at the home front; especially the rich and government officials who were to ensure that soldiers' families not starve or suffer while the men were away fighting. Other factors he argues such as the loss of the border states (retreats from them saw a huge wave of desertion), decisive defeats in 1862 (it is believed a majority of paroled Confederates may have deserted while at home awaiting exchange), the Conscription Act of 1862, oppression of home front Unionists/neutrals, tax in kind impressment, growing perception of a 'rich man's war, poor man's fight'; all contributed to the outflow of men from the Confederate armies--many with their arms and equipment.

These men, allied directly with local Unionists, or lawlessly preying on anyone nearby, or simply resisting any form of the Confederacy they encountered, made up a third front. This third front was one the Confederacy never really paid much attention to until it was too late. Between local/state courts invalidating conscription calls or the inability of state/local forces to control what in many areas was battalion to brigade sized forces, the Confederacy saw strangled commerce and an inability to extract recruits or resources. At the same time it made soldiers at the distant fronts more concerned about families in what was supposed to be safe areas. All of this, long before Federal forces ever got anywhere near such places.

The numbers are hard to argue with though some may have cause to debate calling stragglers or men coming in late from leave deserters as Weitz does, but it is impossible to argue that even a temporary loss of these men hurt Confederate war making abilities. Weitz also believes that a more severe policy of shooting more deserters could have forestalled enough of these men from leaving. In my opinion, it was far more likely to have ignited more armed mutinies instead.

Though expensive, this book is well worth the cost for anyone even remotely serious about this war. Heavily documented, well written ,and interlaced with many first person vignettes, this book has a place on one's shelf. Hopefully, someone will do a similar job on Federal forces soon.

Few images are more enduring than the Confederate infantryman, clad in rags, blanket roll, slouch hat, dirty beyond belief with an immaculate rifle in hand. Standing without fear against long odds, he endures cold and hunger for "the cause" fighting to the bitter end. This book is NOT an attack on that image, rather it documents that there are multiple images in every great event and all of them can be true. Mr. Weitz has written a very readable, intelligent and thought provoking account of desertion and draft dodging in the Confederacy. He validates the image of the Confederate infantryman while showing us that other images are equally valid and need to be understood.

The heart of the book is a year-by-year account of desertion in each theater coupled with the military and political response. Every student of Civil War history knows about how understanding most armies were of "French Leave". In addition, we know that the South was not as solid as legend suggests but contained significant pockets of "Tories" throughout the war. That is a simple and somewhat straightforward story that hardly seems worthy of a book. If this was all that the author had to give, I would have been unable to finish the book.

First, we have a discussion of why non-slave owing White subsistence farmers are willing to fight and their understanding of the "contract" with the CSA. This is a very interesting subject that the author deftly handles, giving us a look into rural Southern life lacking in many books. This contract' while unwritten but understood forms the foundation upon which these men build their service. They leave expecting the government to care for and protect their homes. This includes seeing that their family is not in want. Documentation shows that the men, the states and Richmond fully understood this unwritten contract with each party aware of their obligations. This discussion might be one of the best explanations of why the CSA succeeded thru 1862 that I have found.

A second very strong point is the discussion of how men felt about areas that were not "home". This becomes critical as the war progresses but the standard civilian view and fear of armies translates into feelings that civilians in [insert state name here] are not supporting the cause and the fighting men. This perception of no support leads to alienation as men decide that this area is not home. For a nation based on the idea of home, this decision excludes the area from the nation.

In 1861 desertion is not a major problem Homesickness, "what have I done?" and problems within the unit are the driving forces. The military is very tolerant of desertion and most deserters face reduced charges when and if they return. "French leave" and straggling are accepted and returning to your unit takes care of the problem. This toleration and the requirement of returning to the original unit become fixed ideas in the military and the governments. Later, these policies cause real problems but no one seems to be able to fully reject them and make a fresh start.

1862 is a critical year for the Confederacy, seeing conscription, inflation, shortages, war profiteering, bloody battles and loss of territory. Desertion becomes a major problem, links with draft dogging and receives active support from the new Union government in Tennessee. As homes disappear behind Union lines, men can go home free of military service by "swearing the oath". Tennessee is very active enticing men to leave CSA service, come home and sit out the war. In time, Grant becomes involved by exempting Confederate deserters and draft dodgers from the Union conscription laws. As the problems grow, response is mired in the policies of 1861 and the issue of state's rights. One state court rules that catching deserters and draft dodgers is a national issue and the state cannot participate.

Beset by internal problems, with Union armies advancing and bloodier battles, in 1863 the dam breaks. Desertion reaches epic proportions in every army in spite of amnesty proclamations, general orders and a few executions. Worse, not all men can get home and many join together to survive. These organized bands are larger, well trained, experience better armed and able to overwhelm local militia. They prey off the civilian population, providing a haven for resistance to taxes and the draft. In some areas, these men control the law making it impossible to collect taxes or to arrest them. The author does an excellent job of linking this to the earlier question of what these men considered a nation and how they felt about areas outside of "home". Once again, local Union commanders take advantage of the situation providing arms and supplies in some areas. In other areas, a 3-way fight develops between these bands, the local militia and the Union army. Trapped are Southern civilians and the men that have stayed in the army. The contract is broken forcing them to make hard decision based on their true loyalties and responsibilities. The author fully captures the pain this choice caused and how these men are forced into this decision.

Government response is inadequate and might be called wishful thinking. In the face of appeals from both the military and the states, the government continues the failed policies of 1861 with few exceptions. The book contains examples where a local commander is able to produce results by breaking up bands and capturing men. However, requirements for men at the front, politics and policies never managed to produce a solution that is more than temporary.

By 1864, the South has lost the war. More men see this and respond by going home, often behind Union lines. The numbers are surprising even for a student of the war. What is often passed off as "French Leave" or AWOL is really a loss of manpower the South cannot afford while being unable to implement policies that will stop it.

This unique and valuable study needs to be in the library of every serious student of the war. While a scholarly text, it is an interesting, informative and enjoyable read.

This is book 2 in the Wagon's West series.

The wagon train is now heading into new territory for them. They are on the way to Oregon and are leaving Independence, MO behind. They are also now being led by Whip Holt. They are traveling through Nebraska and continuing westward.

This is the story of their struggles against the British & Russian forces trying to keep them for making the trip as well and the environment and Native Americans.

This book is one of the 6th printing from back in the late 70's. If you are interested in the settlement of the American West this is one series that you need to revisit.

This is a book I keep reading again and again. It just is a terrific read. If you're interested in the history of early America, then this is THE series for you!

"Nebraska" is Book 2 in Dana Fuller Ross' magnificent "Wagons West" series. In 1837 the United States was experiencing its first financial depression. Banks were failing, factories closing, and farms were being foreclosed. US citizens were increasingly hungry and dispossessed. Out of a population of 16 million, a quarter of a million were unemployed. People by the thousands were moving West to settle the wilderness and make a new start in life. Former US President Andrew Jackson, new President Martin Van Buren, and financier John Jacob Astor decided to assign mountainman and weathered veteran Sam Brentwood and his partner Michael "Whip" Holt to form the first wagon train of pioneers with the purpose of crossing the North American continent and settling the Oregon Territory. Imperial Russia and Great Britain were also determined to claim the Oregon Territory for themselves and planned to do everything in their countries' power to sabotage the United States' effort.

The caravan now included 500 people and their horses, oxen and prairie schooners. Having reached the frontier town of Independence, Missouri, Sam Brentwood and his new wife leave the group to open a trading depot to supply future pioneers and wagon trains. Wagon scout Whip Holt now takes over as wagonmaster and the legendary group begins to move across the Great Plains to the Rockie Mountains on the second stage of their journey. They are set upon by hostile Indians, British and Russian spies, accidents and illness, and the petty bickering that comes from interacting with the same people day after day, along with the monotony of the trail. Relationships and rivalries are formed which prove to be every bit as exciting as the journey itself.

The characters are outstanding and extremely realistic. The author vividly brings history to life in "Nebraska," as in the other books in the series. And the politics behind the settling of the West are fascinating. As one would expect, the novel is chock-full of adventure, hardship, courage, love, loss, tragedy and triumph. Many details have been taken from actual diaries and journals of early pioneers. Once you start this book you won't be able to stop until you have read all 24 novels. The next one is "Wyoming," and deals with the third leg of the trip -wintering in the Rocky Mountains and the move to Oregon. Very highly recommended!
JANA

I have purchased many tractors over the last 25 years and I wish that I would have had this book all the while. The Nebraska tests evolved to provide the farmer with a standard of comparison to gauge his power requirements. Many manufactures prior to these tests boasted claims, but there was no real way to be sure. This book explains the need for this program and gives complete and comprehensive results for 'every' test. I find it a very interesting and informative authority of tractor power and reliability.

Charles H. Wendel's tireless research provides a very compelling volume of information for the farmer, collector, restorer, or enthusiast. Presented chronologically, the volume offers technical data on hundreds of makes and models, ranging from John Deere, International and Minneapolis-Moline, to lesser know and specialty tractors such as David Brown, Bates Steel Mule, and Big Bud.

Each tractor's technical information is accompanied by a photo (in some cases and actual photo of the tractor at the test lab). Data is incorporated directly into the text and the volume is very well edited.

The Nebraska tests were the one thing that standardized tractor ratings. This book is full of information that can be found in bits and pieces elsewhere,but is complete, from the testing lab to you,in this volume. A must have for the serious tractor hobbiest or professional. Lots of good pictures and info on even some of the rarest of tractors.

I was in Junior High in Lincoln, NE when this story happened. I spent most of my time junior high and high school discussing Larry Trapp and the Weisser family. I was fortunate enough to have Cantor Weisser speak at a candlelight vigil I held during my senior year in high school. This is an amazing book.

I was a member of the Congregation in Lincoln ten years ago, and knew Larry Trapp personally. This book is a great insight into how I remember the situation, and to that great deed of Cantor Weisser. I recommend it fully to everyone out there. It will help you understand the emotion and meaning Larry Trapp added to our lives.

The first part of this book is a frightening portrait of a dangerous, unstable neo-Nazi. After reading what the book reveals about the personalities of some of these people, racially mixed families might pause before visiting certain parts of our country.
Cantor Weiss's ability to show tolerance and kindness to KKK member Larry Trapp is extremely moving and awe-inspiring. One of the things I learned from this book is that Weiss's capacity for forgiveness actually has deep roots in the Jewish tradition.

As I look forward to again attending The Prairie Festival at The Land again this year, I relished reading this book. It was fascinating reading the four authors' discussions of their work and their lives as they intersect their published writing.

This book also spoke to my interest in the Operation Migration project which is leading the way for the whooping cranes to again be wild and part of the land. John Price ponders and dissects the importance of place and the meaning of home and how we can follow Wendell Berry in really knowing about the place where we live.

"Though Heat-Moon's final quest for memory is a times awkward and self-conscious, it is for him essential. If America, if the human species, is to survive, then it must work actively to rejuvenate and reconstruct geographically specific, ancestral paradigms-deep maps-that move it toward a grand harmony of people and places."

Anyone who has seen the movie "Into the Wild" will resonate with Price's description of the effects of William Trogdon's decision to write "Prairy Erth" under the name William Least Heat-Moon.

"This rejuvenation begins with the individual journey, with the singular act of self-creation represented, perhaps, by William Trogdon's decision to rejuvenate the William Least Heat-Moon name. Whatever the consequences for the larger world, it was clear to me that the "Heat-Moon self" had led Trogdon to write one of the most important books on the prairie in American literature, a book that had had a profound impact on my own commitment to place. That fact alone suggested that what Heat-Moon had written about names was true, that they have he power to shape who we become in relation to the land around us. He writes:'Many tribal Americans believe that a person turns into his name, partakes of its nature in such a way that it is a mold the possessor comes to fill. When names lose their first meaning, as they have to most Americans of European descent, that mold becomes only a handle for others to move us around with.'"

This is an excellent regional history - social, biological and natural history - of the American plains.

John Price's voice is expansive and insightful, including his family connections to various spots in the middle plains states. It also is a look at just what it will take to ground him, via nature, in life. And, as a relatively recent husband, it is also a reflection on where that grounding will take place, and the give-and-take that will be involved with his wife.

As to the specifics of life on the plains, while finding much to celebrate once stereotypes are penetrated, stereotypes still have a fair degree of truth, as do cold, hard facts.

Racism and sexism can still be found in the Midwest, for example. They may be fading away, but they haven't disappeared.

Unfortunately, what has disappeared is untainted land. Take these eye-opening stats from Price's home state of Iowa, for example.

Just one-half of 1 percent of the land is in a pre-European natural state, the worst of any of the 50 states. Even worse, it is so farm-and-ranch chemical laden that only 20 percent of it can EVER be restored to that pre-contact state, it is estimated, citing Richard Manning's "Grassland."

Can we change to something more sustainable? That question, too, gets pondered in this book, and from different angles.

===

Two caveats on matters historical and botanical.

First, the Quapaw and Caddo lived in the southern plains, not the northern ones; second, the prairie did not extend from Appalachia all the way to the Rockies -- Illinois was the one cis-Mississippian state with significant prairie.

(from the Aug. 2004 issue of NCB News of Nebraska Center for the Book http://www.unl.edu/NCB/)

In the first sentence of the acknowledgements page, John Price states: "This is a memoir." But what follows in NOT JUST ANY LAND is not simple autobiography; it is more a combination of scholarly research, self-searching, and the time-honored method of using others' words to clarify his own thoughts about the region formerly known as prairie, what we call the Great Plains. This "memoir" is grassland exploration and ecology literature search at its best: Price cites over 65 authors in his bibliography.

Price traveled to South Dakota, Kansas and Iowa to discover what remained of the prairie, and in the process interviewed four writers whose books had spoken to him of the region. These writers - their varied views, stories and struggles - are the subjects of the four main chapters of the book: "Reaching Yarak: The Peregrinations of Dan O'Brien," "Not Just Any Land: Linda Hasselstrom at Home," "Native Dreams: William Least-Heat Moon and Chase County, Kansas," and "A Healing Home: Mary Swander's Recovery Among the Iowa Amish." Price's insightful questions and sense of humor make the book's subject highly accessible and memorable.

Great Plains enthusiasts, as well as those wanting to understand this often-overlooked region ("...where surprises can live and grow"), will delight in his extensive use of quotations from well-known writers such as Wendell Berry, Gretel Ehrlich, Wes Jackson, William Kittredge, Wallace Stegner and Terry Tempest Williams, to name just a few. Woven through the narrative in often lyrical passages is Price's own exploration of place, community, family history and an understanding of "...what it is that the land demands of us in our daily lives: the nature of responsibility."

Price, who grew up in north central Iowa, has written an important book about region that will be studied, discussed and enjoyed for years to come. He is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

Fresh out of Yale, McClintock went to Montana in 1891 as an employee of the forest service. He ended up living with the Blackfoot tribe and learning their way of life. One elderly chief, Mad Dog, adopted him and taught him tribal culture and rituals so that someone would write them down. This book is the result.

The bison were gone and the Blackfoot economy lay in tatters. Still, McClintock's band was following his traditional seasonal movements, keeping the Sun Dance, and trying to live as they always had - - even as everyone realized that their way of life could not survive in the face of the white man.

McClintock serves as a very sympathetic scribe for the tribe. He was clearly a good listener. One Blood chief in Alberta told him that he had vowed never to speak with white men again, and yet he ended up adopting McClintock as a son. Because the tribe trusted him, he was admitted into a tribal society, invited to participate in rituals, and so forth.

Through most of the 500 pages in this book, McClintock takes a very fair-minded approach to both the Blackfoot and to white society. He often notes how tribal norms, such as sharing, are superior to the behavior of more "civilized" peoples. He takes both Christianity and tribal religions seriously.

Oddly, all this falls apart in the last chapter, where he endorses destructive policies that take away tribal land, convert the Indians to Christianity, and force assimilation on white terms. This chapter contradicts the tone of the rest of the book so deeply that I can't imagine what he was thinking when he wrote it.

Aside from that last chapter, this is a fascinating record of the tribe's traditions at the last possible moment that the tribe was still living its traditional life.

Walter McClintock was a young man who came to the Blackfeet Country at about the turn of the century. He was a trained scientist who could use a camera and he kept careful notes. This is not a romance novel nor anthropological interpretation. McClintock was simply there and made friends well enough to be accepted. He recorded stories, rituals (also took photos), and daily incidents as well as much natural history. He was really there and he is an honest and graceful reporter.

How could it be possible to adequately describe such a powerful -indeed, magical- account of a young man's time with the Blackfeet in the early twentieth century, a time when much of the Old Ways still lived among the Blackfeet people. I have owned or or another edition of The Old North Trail since 1970, and have ever since then been entranced by McClintock's unselfconscious limpid prose style, his descriptions of a summer snowstorm, or a grand encampment of the Blackfeet, the way Indian people in northern Montana prepared and stored food for the coming of winter, or the simple, deep, and everlastingly real relationship with a culture which was even at that late date still indescribably precious and beautiful. Both a superb travelog and a microscopically observed anthropological account of life with the Blackfeet, this book is an extended love letter to the Indian people with whom Walter McC lived. As I write this review I'm transported back to my early twenties, a California surfer just out of college, immersed in a hot deep bath, reading The Old North Trail at sunup in Inverness, Scotland, and forgetting where I was, so completely did this book cast its spell. This is one of the very, very few books with which I am still in love.

David Lavender is a historian whose personal account of growing up in Telluride and Ouray, Colorado is captivating. Mr Lavender documents the arrival of the 1950's "modern age" to western Colorado and Utah. During his youth, the open desert and mountain lands evolve from a setting for silver mines, lone cowboys, and vast cattle ranches into the garden of the atomic age. He documents the arrival of uranium prospectors, the departure of independent cowboy spirits, and finally, the eventual return of the nuclear boom towns to dust. It is fascinating to read him today and to see what the southern Utah desert was like 50 years ago. If you visit these areas, I recommend that you read "One Man's West" as you pass through them. It will give significance to the sight of decaying farm or mining equipment by the roadside, and fill you with appreciation for those who make an effort to preserve the wilderness. I buy this book in multiple copies and give them to my friends. It has no particular bent for environmentalism or even "wise use" in the wilderness, but gives you some historical insight. I have never met Mr. Lavender, but I admire him as an author and historian. He has authored several other books incouding and account of the Lewis and Clark expedition which, I have heard, is quite good."One Man's West" was written in the 1940's then updated in the 1950's. The New York Times published a glowing review of the book in the mid 1940's or 1950's. Its age has only helped to enhance its significance to a contemporary reader of western history.

An excellent book! Ranching and mining, rich history, not to be missed.

Mr. Lavender recently died (April '03)and his obituary in the Los Angeles Times prompted me to go out and buy this book. I could not put it down...just as the Times stated, Lavender is a wonderful writer who knows how to describe the west. This book has it all, mountains, mining, cowboys and history with a nice personal touch. I would recommend it highly. It is an "easy" read and one that will leave you feeling satisfied once you complete the book. I am going to search out more of Mr. Lavender's works.