Description
Book SynopsisThe sobering tale of the rapid rise and decline of the settlement of the western Great Plains.
Trade Review"The Last Days of the Rainbelt offers countless insights into frontier settlement."—Environmental History
"By combining previously overlooked archival material with an informed understanding of the region, Wishart makes an important time and place come alive."—James R. Shortridge,
Kansas History"Wishart has constructed an account that, page for page, may provide as good a portrait of the region as those produced by authors such as Walter Webb, Donald Worster, or Mari Sandoz. Thanks to scholars such as David Wishart, this volume also shows that the New Deal is the gift that keeps on giving."—Richard D. Loosbrock,
Nebraska History"[
The Last Days of the Rainbelt] is highly useful, well written, and an important addition to Great Plains historiography."—Pamela Riney-Kehrberg,
Western Historical Quarterly"Wishart's sobering moral is clear. The parable of the Rainbelt reveals a great deal about the human capacity to misunderstand the environment and our role within it. We also need to heed the past as we contemplate the future, especially in the High Plains, and make these historical geographies more legible to twenty-first-century residents of the region. Wishart's fine book is a reminder of how that is done."—William Wyckoff, AAG Review of Books
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The Last Days of the Rainbelt will appeal to many whose interests lay in the Great Plains (i.e., the Rainbelt) whether the interest is limited to Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado or to the Great Plains region as a whole."—Brad Tennant,
Middle West Review"Wishart, who clearly has zeal for the subject, has skillfully fashioned the results of his research into a narrative that will appeal both to students of the era and to lovers of American western lore."—Barbara Scott,
Foreword ReviewsTable of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction: A Ruined Land
Chapter 1. The Approach from the East, 1854-1885
Chapter 2. Into the Rainbelt, 1886-1890
Chapter 3. Life in the Rainbelt, circa 1890
Chapter 4. The Last Days of the Rainbelt, 1890-1896
Epilogue: After the Rainbelt
Notes
Bibliography
Index
