Nebraska Books

This picture book legend from the Salish people of Montana tells how the animals worked together to use fire to prepare the earth for the first humans. This book is part of a Fire History Project that includes a video, DVD, lesson plans and web site. The story is retold by Salish elder Johnny Arlee and illustrated by tribal artist Sam Sandoval. Information on the Salish alphabet is included. Extensive Note to Teachers and Parents contains excellent information on the importance of fire to Native peoples.

Beaver Steals Fire: A Salish Coyote Story is a picturebook rendition of a story directly from the cultural tradition of the Salish people of Montana. Retold by Salish elder Johnny Arlee, and wonderfully illustrated in full color by tribal artist Sam Sandoval, Beaver Steals Fire recounts how the animals worked together to obtain fire and help prepare the world for inhabitation by human beings. Beaver Steals Fire is presented with the full support of The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Division of Fire; a note to the reader at the beginning asks those who use Beaver Steals Fire in the classroom or others who read it aloud to orally tell or discuss the story only in winter, when snow is on the ground, as this is a strongly ingrained part of tribal seasonal tradition. A beautifully presented legend, highly recommended.

I acquired this book many years ago and have re-read it several times since. It is one of the most respected history books concerning the Old West because it relies on contemporary newspaper and similar accounts. It turns up in the bibliography of just about every worthwhile Western history book, and deservedly so.

Some years ago, as a professor of Criminal Justice, I was asked to teach a course about the History of the Policing Profession and while scrambling for research, this was in the days before Internet etc., I discovered Great Gunfighters of the Kansas Cowtowns. I was very pleased with the content and the measureable factual accounts or as factual as they can be within this era. Actual newspaper articles and descriptions written at the time of the event are included in the book along with the exploits of lesser known lawmen/gunfighters of that era. Ben Thompson, Long Hair Jim Courtright, Dave Mather, Billy Brooks, Chris Madden, Squirrel Annie, Bear River Tom Smith are amoung lesser lights highlighted along with Wild Bill, Wyatt Earp and others. The newspaper accounts are quite factual, plus they revealed an evolution of the culture of the era. Great Gunfighters is not a novel, but is a display of the activities of several individuals who by one means or another contributed to both the allure and order of the cowtowns and other western sites.

gives the reader an insight into late 1800's native american (this particular tribe, the Navaho, anyway) thinking

This is a great book. I first read it about thirty years ago when I was in college. The book reminded me of that part of my childhood spent growing up on the Navajo Nation, when my parents were school teachers there. The book is an anthropological document of the first order but it reads like a novel and is full of humor and pathos. It shows the joy of childhood in a 'simple' culture while painting vivid images of that culture. While the book struck a resonant chord with me, its appeal is universal. It is a mystery, because the unexpectedness of real life is in every page, but it is free of horror and full of affection. I would like to see the book reprinted in hard cover so I can add it to my library in proper form, though I still have the thirty year old paperback.

J. Frank Dobie is a wonderful non fiction writer. Everything he writes
is new and vibrant even though it was first written in 1947. Amazing!
Great book for Texans. Great book for anyone wanting to know all about our coyotes. Amazing animals. And they are only found in the Americas.

I really loved this book. I bought it because I was doing research on Coyotes for a novel I was writing, and I thought I would skim this, but I read it word for word instead. Perhaps because I already had an interest in coyotes, but I came home every night looking forward to reading more. If you love animals, you'll love this book. Well written, easy to ready, interesting stories, etc.

John Hicks wrote this, the original classic, of the populist movement. It is easy to read and flows smoothly from page to page. It is very thorough and is the most in-depth book I know of about the Farmers' Alliance. An excellent history! Begin with this classic, then read Goodwyn and McMath and you will have all you ever need on the history of the Populist movement! A must have!

Though little more than a label today, Populism once stood for something specific - a movement of farmers and workers pushing for political and economic change in Gilded Age America. Published over seventy years ago, John Hicks' book remains one of the seminal works on the history of this movement, tracing its origins and following it through to its demise at the end of the century.

One of the keys to understanding the Populists as Hicks sees it is in understanding the role that the American frontier played in America during the late nineteenth century. It was to this vaguely defined, constantly changing area west of the Mississippi that thousands of farmers flocked, setting up farms in the upper and central Midwest. Lured by the massive advertising campaign of the railroads and local promoters, these people came in search of cheap, bountiful land that could be purchased with easy credit.

This massive spurt of growth came to an end with the crop failures of 1887. As the rains disappeared and the land dried up, the price of real estate dropped precipitously. The effects were felt not just in the Midwest, where tens of thousands fled the region, but the South as well. Here, the region was still recovering from the aftermath of the Civil War, with many farmers working as tenants under the crop-lien system, which gave merchants a powerful hold over them. Their resentment of the system added to that of their counterparts in the Midwest, who felt victimized by the economic system. For many, their crops never brought in enough revenue to meet their needs, and blame was increasingly directed at the banks, railroads, and grain elevator operators which seemed to be profiting exorbitantly from their misery.

These farmers sought organization as a solution to their problems. The Farmers' Alliance, a loose organization initially founded in the 1870s, grew as members sought to protect themselves from their economic situation by organizing business cooperatives and pushing to use the power of the government to address their concerns. Though tactics differed - some organized independent political movements, while others sought to take over the dominant political structure from within - by 1890 the separate Midwestern and Southern branches of the Farmer's Alliance were actively involved in politics, enjoying successes that emboldened their membership.

Initially the Alliance sought enactment of a complex "subtreasury" plan of government-managed cooperatives designed to alleviate the farmers' plight, but the constant political obstruction resulted in frustration. Faced with the combined opposition of both the Democratic and Republican parties, many members sought to overcome it by forming a party of their own - the Populist Party. This new party put forward James B. Weaver as presidential candidate, wining six states in the Electoral College and scoring a number of victories in down-ballot races across the country. The depression created by the Panic of 1893 led the party to adopt the "free silver cause," only to be undercut by the Democrats' nomination of William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 presidential election. Though signaling the demise of the party, Hicks argues that the Democrats' adoption of many of the Populists' ideas was proof of the ultimate success of the Populist revolt.

Even today Hicks' argument for the origins of Populism must be taken into account when studying the movement. Using the wealth of publications that the Alliance and the Populists produced, as well as other primary and secondary sources, he makes a persuasive case for the importance of the economic background to the movement, one that remains generally accepted today. As such, this book continues to be required reading for any student of American history, though one that needs to be balanced with more current scholarship on the subject.

This is a very strong collection of stories and an excellent place to start if you're new to Stephen Graham Jones. If you want to have a taste before taking the 15 dollar plunge, do what I did and type the author's name into that A9 Web Search box up top. Several of the short stories featured here can be sampled through various online publications, along with other little gems that could have just as easily fit into the book. You'll probably find yourself hooked before it even arrives in the mail.

stephen jones, the author of three previous novels, THE FAST RED ROAD, ALL THE BEAUTIFUL SINNERS, and THE BIRD IS GONE as done it once again. time and time again jones manages to blow me away with his vision of the world around us. BLEED INTO ME is a collection of stories, some have been published previously while others this is their first time seeing print. nobody puts together scenes like stephen jones. nobody takes ordinary events and flips them on their head like he does. the characters that roam the pages of this collection are 'real' people, people we all know. to steal a line from another review that sums it up best, "Jones sees this world, its parallels between beauty and despair, grace and turmoil, and describes it with originality and stylistic flair. Jones's vision is unflinchingly peculiar. It's also a vision like no other.

(...)

As far as historical fiction goes this is as good as it gets. Based upon the actual relationship between Cochise and a white US Army scout - Tom Jeffords - the author pours into the novel his own extensive research into the 1856-1872 era of what is now Arizona. This is not fluff writing and it is not romanticized. Cochise emerges as a real person with both light and dark shades as does Jeffords and the white and Hispanic settlers of the Arizona Territory. An extremely well-balanced account written well ahead of the time when more balanced accounts came into vogue. (First published in 1947.) This is also a very good read in terms of drama and pace and plot and characterization. I would not hesitate to ask students to read this piece alongside other more academic accounts of the clash in the American Southwest between the Chiricahua people and those who moved en masse into their homeland. The author, Elliott Arnold, has taken great pains to make this read as authentic as possible. Highly recommended.

Historical novel, later a movie and a popular T.V. series. Idealized view of Apache life. Tom Jeffords goes to Cochise so he can get the mail through Apache territory. Jeffords marries an Apache girl. Events led to peace until Cochise's death

This is Kihlman's second novel (his first one "Se upp salige" caused a scandal in Swedish-Finnish circles in 1960), and like in the first book he deals with the terrors of a family that is perfect on the outside and quite empty and bored on the inside. The complex themes of this novel might be hard to appreciate for an American audience that wants more straighforward writing and I suggest that anyone who want to know more about the background should check out Henrik Tikkanen's masterpiece "Snobs' Island" (available through zshops). In an interview last year mr. Kihlman proclaimed himself to be a happily married but totally depraved person. Much respected in Finnish literary circles, Kihlman has a very charming humour and is known for downplaying his own literary achievements. Currently he is suffering from writer's block and hasn't published any novel since "The downfall of Bladh" in the middle 80's. Well, he rarely gives interviews either, but when he does, he usually says something very worthwhile on the current state of affairs of our country. This book is considered a classic in Scandinavian litetarure, but I wonder what the Americans will make of it...

The Blue Mother centers around the recollections of two brothers. Man, are these two screwed up fellas! Benno is a mentally ill basket case who's institutionalized for an attempted suicide due to several bizarre homosexual encounters. His brother Raf may be more intelligently aware, but he's a psycological basket-case as well as alcoholic & marital cheat. The book has a soap opera-like theme to it, but Kihlman is a brilliant writer and the novel is hallucinatorily surreal. Here's another amazing writer virtually unknown to American readers & it's a shame. He's a genius.

Beyond the scientific portions of this book, California Grizzly spends a Chapter discussing the role of the grizzly bear as a symbol and emblem of California. It collects facts and pieces of information not readily available elsewhere, like very early images of the California Bear Flag and information about drawings of the California grizzly. Given that its two authors were zoologists, it is impressive that they spent the time and had the interest to establish some of the more humanly significant materials about this animal, and its influence as symbol.

Since the book was first published in 1955, it is pleasant to have a new edition, which makes its information available to a new generation of readers and Californians.

William J. Trinkle----
Director
The Bear Flag Museum

Though the work is forty years old, Storer and Tevis remains a valuable sourcebook for those wishing to understand the full nature of an extinction. It's all here: bear biology, relationships with Indians, relationships with Spaniards, stories of famous California Grizzlies, the ~real~ life and time of Grizzly Adams, and more. Whether you are a biologist, a historian, or just an armchair wildlife enthusiast, you will find California Grizzly a fascinating and necessary book.

In The Cattle Towns, Robert Dykstra demonstrates how five Kansas towns--Dodge City, Ellsworth, Caldwell, Abilene, and Wichita--developed through a complex set of conflicts that bred progress. Instead of adding to the frontier myth of wild and violent cattle towns, Dykstra builds upon studies of urban history and applies them to the developing frontier to create a local, social history that has national relevance.

Success or failure of a town depended on a number of variables including location, promotion, and people. Location as related to the county center, railroad lines, and especially for this study, cattle trails, played major roles in determining town futures. Advertisements in newspapers located between the Kansas cattle towns and the source of the cattle herds in Texas lured the trail drivers north. The most important element in the future of the cattle towns, however, was the local population.

Although the town newspapers often gave the impression that residents of the town and surrounding areas spoke in a unified voice, that was usually not the case. Disagreements between businessmen and rural folk, ranchers and farmers, natives and foreign-born, and reformers and vice practitioners were frequent. Dykstra contradicts earlier studies that claimed successful town development on mutual cooperation and shows how progress was made through such differences.

The differences over town policy provided a forum for area residents to discuss the future vision of their town. Whether the discussion was over alcohol, gambling, prostitution, or the movement of the splenic flu deadline, the result was an exchange of ideas focused on improving the town. Town businessmen, for example, sympathized with the reformers who sought to improve the moral values of the town by eliminating vices, but not at the financial cost of losing the trail drivers who were attracted by such vices and spent their funds liberally throughout town.

Due to the advancement of technology and the progression of settlers into the once open Kansas frontier, the cattle towns shifted their focus from cattle to the more consistent industry of agriculture. The westward movement of settlers altered the routes of cattle drives away from towns like Abilene and Dodge City and railroads continued to expand their coverage, removing these towns from the cattle industry. Despite the moral vices that accompanied it, the cattle industry between 1867 and 1885 helped provide an immediate economic base that developed towns and laid the groundwork for future success.

Utilizing information from period newspapers, letters, maps, government documents, and previous studies, Dykstra creates a well-written study that explores urban aspirations and rivalry in a frontier setting. By examining the motivations of individuals and groups in the cattle towns, Dykstra has made a valuable contribution to town building on the changing frontier.

"One of the most intelligent, interesting, and worthwhile contributions to the field of Western history in some time. [The author] has managed to say something rather basic about American culture in general." -- William H. Goetzmann. "Excellent . . . readable and persuasive. . . . One of the most refreshing and rewarding approaches to be applied to western history topics in many years, for [the author] is asking basic questions about social process and the nature of urban society." -- Howard Roberts Lamar.