Nebraska Books

The interaction of the local French working with a brave person combined to make this story of individual bravery inspiring. The unoccupied area of France during the first part of the Second World War provided opportunity for some to resist against Nazi oppression. It took those who were willing to take risks for the benefit of others that provides the satisfaction of the read.

Cliff Swallows are the life passion of Charles and Mary Brown. Every summer for the past fifteen years Charles and Mary have left the University where they are teaching and journeyed to Ogalalla, Nebraska to study these fascinating colonial birds. In his book, "Swallow Summer", Charles Brown gives the reader an insight into the day to day life of a research biologist. This true story of a summer filled with birds and data collection is told in an intriguing and humorous manner.

Brown lets the reader look into not only his life, but also the life of this fascinating small bird. Cliff Swallows nest in large colonies in culverts, cliffs, and other such areas around Lake McConaughy in Nebraska. During the summer Charles and Mary deal with not only the Cliff Swallows, but also a number of young research assistants from all over the world who come to Ogalalla to study research biology with the Browns. Often the antics of the research assistants are as amusing as those of the Cliff Swallows.

Douglas Strong does an excellent job of explaining the environmental history of Lake Tahoe in a straight forward manner. This book puts in context the numerous issues confronting the lake and how these developed. I found the book quite interesting and very timely, given the renewed interest in preserving the clarity of the lake.

Not enough books discuss race, gender, class, and nationality simultaneously. Not enough authors produce comparative work on indigenous peoples. Not enough work looks at less common interracial pairings. Dr. Ellinghaus' book is a strong intervention and contribution in so many ways.
Paula Gunn Allen once wrote something to the effect that people focus upon Native Americans' disappearance and not enough on their survival. The author here emphasizes that Natives and Aborigines did not die off as colonizers expected, thus Australians tried to "absorb" Aborigines and Americans tried to "assimilate" Natives. She goes on to say Aborigines were given educations and thus weren't desirable as marriage partners they way educated Native Americans might have been. Then she states that white Americans of the time period were so busy trying to prevent Black-white unions that they didn't give Native-white unions as much thought, but Australia had no group of color as numerous and with the history of African Americans.
Many readers ignore beginning pages written in Roman numbers and start with pages that have Arabic numbers. That would be a mistake here: the introductory chapter is the most informative. This reminds me of how professors only assigned the introduction to Sedgwick Kosofsky's "Epistemology of the Closet" when I was in college. Rushed students can get away with just reading that chapter and skimming the rest.
In the book "Interracial Intimacy," Rachel Moran totally dismisses interracial couples based upon partners of color. Here, Ellinghaus writes that Australians did fear that Aborigines would marry Asians and that Native Americans at Hampton would marry African Americans. I appreciate the way this author moved beyond thinking that race can only involve two groups.
Honestly, the author's ideas about assimilation and absorption are not clear cut. She mentions sundry Aboriginal men that were still oppressed by the larger white society though they had married white women. The author purposely excludes white man-indigenous woman marriages and non-marital copulation of any kind. That's great in focusing upon this coupling, however, I sometimes wish she had made comparisons. She includes the photo seen in "Rabbit-Proof Fence" where an Aboriginal line becomes whiter by the generation, but they focus upon women/mothers, not Aboriginal men. Before the Emancipation Proclamation, white men forced Black women to engage them sexually while forbidding Black men to get with white women. In the Australian context, I really wonder if Australian men believed they could get with Aboriginal women, but Aboriginal men should get with no one. Keeping men of color away from white women plays a large role in anti-miscegenation movements in many countries. That double standard is not adequately addressed here.
Ellinghaus only discusses a handful of marriages. She doesn't emphasize how rare these couplings may have been. It may feel like gleaning to some without the basis for solid conclusions (too small a sample). Further, if I recall Wilma Mankiller, the first female Cherokee chief, never mentioned whether society was biased against her Native father and white mother. I think I read that Elias' Boudinat's white wife's family first objected to her interracial marriage, but then accepted it. The first anecdote happened after the period in this book; the second example happened before it. Still, I wish the author could have stated whether matters and dynamic changed before 1880 and after 1930.
If you look carefully, there are photos of Native men, but none of Aboriginal men. The author includes Australian marriage certificates, but no photos. I wonder if that means Americans embrace photography before Australians or if Australians made a point not to photograph Aboriginal men.

Many people have heard of New Mexico's gypsum sand dunes at White Sands National Monument and the enormous flocks of Sandhill Cranes at Bosque del Apache Wildlife Area. But few people, even New Mexicans, know much about the Jornada del Muerto ("Journey of Death"), the vast desert located between the two, except maybe the fact that scientists detonated the world's first atomic bomb at the Trinity Site there in 1945. A landscape bordered by the Rio Grande River and several mountain ranges, it's also the site of Edward Abbey's novel, FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN, about a rancher who refuses to move off of his land when ordered to by the US government during WWII.

Alan Boye is a professor of English from Vermont whose book combines the history of the Jornada, interviews with its rugged inhabitants, and personal reflections on his hikes there. Who would have thought this desolate, beautiful desert had so much fascinating history? Boye recounts tales of ancient peoples, the coming of the first Europeans into what is now the US on the Camino Real (The "Royal Way"); Apache attacks; and even a dramatic Civil War battle (yes, there were not one but two Civil War battles in New Mexico).

The Jornada played a key role in the lives of western legends: Spanish Conquistadores Coronado and Onate; Zebulon Pike, the first Anglo man to see the Jornada; Kit Carson; Eugene Rhodes, the writer; and Victorio, the Apache warrior. But equally interesting are the stories Boye tells about its lesser known people: the ranchers who witnessed the world's first nuclear test and fought the US government to keep their ranches, or the "Wild Man," a legendary recluse who "lived his entire adult life in the outdoor air of the Jornada."

Like David Roberts, whose IN SEARCH OF THE OLD ONES and THE PUEBLO REVOLT also mix history with descriptions of personal treks through the southwest landscape, Boye is also very good at this genre. He's more of a poet than Roberts, but he never lapses into sentimentality.

The Jornada del Muerto is hard to explore these days. Ted Turner currently owns much of the Jornada on one of his ranches, and practically the rest is on the White Sands Missile Range. But this book makes me want to head to the Owl Bar in San Antonio, New Mexico, for one its famous green chile cheeseburgers, and then hike into the vast Jornada del Muerto to see what I can find as well.

Dr. Janovy uses extensive experience in teaching in the field not only to share his insights into field teaching is done effectively, but also to explore teaching in general.

A wonderful book. English born Stuck was appointed Episcopal Archbishop for the Alaska territory at the end of the 19th century, a role he took very seriously. For a product of blue-blood Victorian England his attitudes to the native peoples were surprisingly enlightened (for example, he rages against the corrupting influence of Russian fur traders).

Tough as the any of the most intrepid Victorian explorers his stiff upper lip attitude to the dangers & deprivations of back country life make for amusing reading (apparently he dressed for dinner on the trail).

The Alaska University Press edition contained some nice photographs, I'm not sure if this one does.

I was told by people in Wakpala, SD, that this is the best account of the coming of White Buffalo Calf Maiden. She came to the people who lived in this area of South Dakota, and the current residents are their descendents. When Frances Densmore came and asked to record their music and culture, the whole Tribe consulted and having heard of her reputation for honesty and integrity, they agreed to tell her the whole story of the White Buffalo Calf Maiden(Woman) and how she gave them the Sacred Pipe.And they told her all of their sacred rituals and songs. The scores and words are all here, interwoven with the text.

This book is by and about a real cowboy -- not a Clint Eastwood or John Wayne type -- but a true to life cowboy.

Charlie Siringo punched cattle. His brush with history? He joined in the chase for Billy the Kid. He never saw the outlaw, but it was just one more of many things this average cowpoke did and wrote about.

Reading this book gives a person a feel of what it was REALLY like to live and work as a cowboy in Texas.

Outstanding book on Texas during the Civil War. I would recommend it to anyone researching Texas or the Civil War. Very good book. Well researched.