Search results for ""university of oklahoma press""

War is hell, and the return to civilian life afterwards can be a minefield as well, especially for veterans of a ""bad war."" Soldiers coming home from Vietnam faced unique challenges as veterans of a controversial war whose divisiveness permeated every step of the re-entry and readjustment process. In his balanced and highly readable account, Vietnam Veterans since the War, sociologist Wilbur J. Scott tells the story of how the veterans and their allies organized to articulate their concerns and to win concessions from a reluctant Congress, federal agencies, and courts.Scott draws on published records, hours of personal interviews with veterans, and his experience as an infantry platoon leader in Vietnam to explore the major social movements among his fellow veterans in the crucial years from 1967 to 1990, including the antiwar movement, the successful effort to win recognition of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by the American Psychiatric Association, the establishment of veterans' outreach centers, the controversy over the defoliant Agent Orange and its long-term effects, and the struggle to create the National Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. His new afterword brings the story up to date and demonstrates that while the United States' involvement in Vietnam continues to be controversial, many of the tensions engendered by the war have been overcome.

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Butterflies of Oklahoma, Kansas, and North Texas focuses on one hundred butterfly species common to the southern plains, a crucial crossroads region of the central United States. Each species is illustrated with one to four color photographs of butterflies in free flight and other natural settings. These candid shots are a welcome departure from the dried-and-pinned specimen photographs of some field guides. Photographs are placed alongside each butterfly's physical description and natural history, eliminating the need to flip between galleries and text. Other unique features include:modern terminology that general readers will understanddescriptions of twenty prime butterfly spotting sites in the tri-state region information on how to raise butterflies from larval to adult stages an extensive bibliography of additional resources.With increasing interest in butterfly gardening, many readers will appreciate practical how-to chapters for planning, installing, and maintaining a custom butterfly sanctuary in their own yards.More conservationists are recognizing the importance of butterflies to the ecosystem - as plant pollinators and examples of natural mimicry and coloration. The authors of this guidebook hope that a deeper understanding of these intriguing insects will lead to their protection and to preservation of their habitat.

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For many people, ""western art"" immediately conjures images by Frederic Remington or Georgia O'Keeffe - but there's so much more. From early explorers' first sketches of the Rockies to the modern earth sculptures of Michael Heizer, images of the American West are as multifaceted as its cultures. This remarkable book embraces them all.A landmark overview of western American art, the original edition of The West of the Imagination brought the region to wide public attention as a companion to a popular PBS series of the same name. This book, significantly expanded and updated, shows that the West is a vibrant mirror of American cultural diversity. Through 450 illustrations - more than 300 in color - the authors trace the visual evolution of the myth of the American West, from unknown frontier to repository of American values, covering popular and high arts alike.An unrivaled survey, The West of the Imagination is an immensely informative and pleasurable volume for anyone with an interest in the region's creative legacy.

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Between 1974 and 1990 more than thirty countries in southern Europe, Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe shifted from authoritarian to democratic systems of government. This global democratic revolution is probably the most important political trend in the late twentieth century. In The Third Wave, Samuel P. Huntington analyzes the causes and nature of these democratic transitions, evaluates the prospects for stability of the new democracies, and explores the possibility of more countries becoming democratic. The recent transitions, he argues, are the third major wave of democratization in the modem world. Each of the two previous waves was followed by a reverse wave in which some countries shifted back to authoritarian government. Using concrete examples, empirical evidence, and insightful analysis, Huntington provides neither a theory nor a history of the third wave, but an explanation of why and how it occurred.Factors responsible for the democratic trend include the legitimacy dilemmas of authoritarian regimes; economic and social development; the changed role of the Catholic Church; the impact of the United States, the European Community, and the Soviet Union; and the ""snowballing"" phenomenon: change in one country stimulating change in others. Five key elite groups within and outside the nondemocratic regime played roles in shaping the various ways democratization occurred. Compromise was key to all democratizations, and elections and nonviolent tactics also were central. New democracies must deal with the ""torturer problem"" and the ""praetorian problem"" and attempt to develop democratic values and processes. Disillusionment with democracy, Huntington argues, is necessary to consolidating democracy. He concludes the book with an analysis of the political, economic, and cultural factors that will decide whether or not the third wave continues.Several ""Guidelines for Democratizers"" offer specific, practical suggestions for initiating and carrying out reform. Huntington's emphasis on practical application makes this book a valuable tool for anyone engaged in the democratization process. At this volatile time in history, Huntington's assessment of the processes of democratization is indispensable to understanding the future of democracy in the world.

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This superbly illustrated volume traces the evolution of the art of warfare in the Greek and Roman worlds between 1600 B.C. and A.D. 800, from the rise of Mycenaean civilization to the fall of Ravenna and the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. John Warry tells of an age of great military commanders such as Alexander the Great, Hannibal, and Julius Caesar - men whose feats of generalship still provide material for discussion and admiration in the military academies of the world.The text is complemented by a running chronology, 16 maps, 50 newly researched battle plans and tactical diagrams, and 125 photographs, 65 of them in color.

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In 1854, a Cherokee Indian called Yellow Bird (better known as John Rollin Ridge) launched in this book the myth of Joaquin Murieta, based on the California criminal career of a 19th century Mexican bandit. Today this folk hero has been written into state histories, sensationalized in books, poems, and articles throughout America, Spain, France, Chile, and Mexico, and made into a motion picture. The Ridge account is here reproduced from the only known copy of the first edition, owned by Thomas W. Streeter, of Morristown, New Jersey. According to it, the passionate, wronged Murieta organized an outlaw company numbering over 2,000 men, who for two years terrorized gold-rush Californians by kidnapping, bank robberies, cattle thefts, and murders. So bloodthirsty as to be considered five men, Joaquin was aided by several hardy subordinates, including the sadistic cutthroat, -Three-Fingered Jack.- Finally, the state legislature authorized organization of the Mounted Rangers to capture the outlaws. The drama is fittingly climaxed by the ensuing chase, -good, gory- battle, and the shocking fate of the badmen.

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In the wake of the violent labor disputes in Colorado's two-year Coalfield War, a young woman and single mother resolved in 1916 to change the status quo for 'girls,' as well-to-do women in Denver referred to their hired help. Her name was Jane Street, and this compelling biography is the first to chronicle her defiant efforts - and devastating misfortunes - as a leader of the so-called housemaid rebellion. A native of Indiana, Jane Street (1887 - 1966) began her activist endeavors as an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). In riveting detail, author Jane Little Botkin recounts Street's attempts to orchestrate a domestic mutiny against Denver's elitist Capitol Hill women, including wives of the state's national guard officers and Colorado Fuel and Iron operators. It did not take long for the housemaid rebellion to make local and national news. Despite the IWW's initial support of the housemaids' fight for fairness and better pay, Street soon found herself engaged in a gender war, the target of sexism within the very organization she worked so hard to support. The abuses she suffered ranged from sabotage and betrayal to arrests and abandonment. After the United States entered World War I and the first Red Scare arose, Street's battle to balance motherhood and labor organizing began to take its toll. Legal troubles, broken relationships, and poverty threatened her very existence. In previous western labor and women's studies accounts, Jane Street has figured only marginally, credited in passing as the founder of a housemaids' union. To unearth the rich detail of her story, Botkin has combed through case histories, family archives, and - perhaps most significant - Street's own writings, which express her greatest joys, her deepest sorrows, and her unfortunate dealings with systematic injustice. Setting Jane's story within the wider context of early-twentieth-century class struggles and the women's suffrage movement, The Girl Who Dared to Defy paints a fascinating - and ultimately heartbreaking - portrait of one woman's courageous fight for equality.

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Beginning Creek provides a basic introduction to the language and culture of the Mvskoke-speaking peoples, Muskogee (Creek) and Seminole Indians. Written by linguistic anthropologist Pamela Innes and native speakers Linda Alexander and Bertha Tilkens, the text is accessible to general readers and students and is accompanied by two compact discs.The volume begins with an introduction to Creek history and language, and then each chapter introduces readers to a new grammatical feature, vocabulary set, and series of conversational sentences. Translation exercises from English to Mvskoke and Mvskoke to English reinforce new words and concepts. The chapters conclude with brief essays by Linda Alexander and Bertha Tilkens on Creek culture and history and suggestions for further reading.The two audio CDs present examples of ceremonial speech, songs, and storytelling and include pronunciations of Mvskoke language keyed to exercises and vocabulary lists in the book. The combination of recorded and written material gives students a chance to learn and practice Mvskoke as an oral and written language.Although Mvskoke speakers include the Muskogee (Creek) and Seminole Nations of Oklahoma, the Poarche Band of Creek Indians in Alabama, and some Florida Seminoles, the number of native speakers of Mvskoke has declined. Because the authors believe that language and culture are inextricably linked, they have combined their years of experience speaking and teaching Mvskoke to design an introductory textbook to help Creek speakers preserve their traditional language and way of life.

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A first-rate ornithologist, Margaret Morse Nice pioneered field studies on song sparrows and advocated for women's active role in the sciences. In this engaging first book-length biography, Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie sheds light on Nice's intellectual journey.

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Walking the Stations of the Cross, the Christian faithful re-create the Passion, following the sorrowful path of Jesus Christ from condemnation to crucifixion. While this devotion, now so popular in the Catholic Church and many Protestant denominations, first emerged in Jerusalem and began spreading through Western Europe in the fourteenth century, it did not assume its current form, and earn the Church’s formal recognition, until almost three centuries later. It was at this time, in the last decades of the seventeenth century, that a Franciscan friar in colonial Mexico translated a devotional guide to the Stations of the Cross into the native Nahuatl. This little handbook, Fray Agustin de Vetancurt’s Via crucis en mexicano, proved immensely popular, going through two editions, but survives today only in a copy made by a native scribe from Central Mexico. Reproduced here in Nahuatl and English, Vetancurt’s handbook offers unique insight into the history, the practice, and the meaning of the Stations of the Cross in the New World and the Old. With the Via crucis en mexicano as a starting point, John F. Schwaller explores the history of the development and spread of the Stations of the Cross, placing the devotion in the context of the Catholic Reformation and the Baroque, the two trends that exalted this type of religious expression. He describes how the devotion, exported to New Spain in the sixteenth century, was embraced by Spanish and natives alike. For the native Americans, Schwaller suggests, the Via crucis resonated because of its performative aspects, reminiscent of rituals and observances from before the arrival of the Spanish. And for missionaries, the devotion offered a means of deepening the faith of the newly converted. In Schwaller’s deft analysis—which extends from the origins of the devotion, to the processions and public rituals of the Mexica (Aztecs), to the text and illustrations of the Vetancurt manuscript—the Via crucis en mexicano opens a window on the practice and significance of the Stations of the Cross—and of private devotions generally—in Mexico, Hispanic America, and around the world.

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In this historical novel by Max Crawford, the U.S. 2nd Cavalry rolls into Texas in the 1870s with orders to keep the peace and persuade the fierce Comanches to move quietly onto the reservation. Captain Philip Chapman tells a tale of high adventure: the hardships of a forced cavalry march, an ambush by the Comanches, an idyllic summer camp at the Caballo Ranch, the epic trek made by Chapman and his K Troop across the Ilano estacado, and defeat of Tehana Storm, legendary half-white Comanche chieftain, in the decisive battle at Palo Duro Canyon.

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In the decades bracketing the turn of the twentieth century, Charles M. Russell depicted the American West in a fresh, personal, and deeply moving way. To this day, Russell is celebrated for his paintings and sculptures of cowboys at work and play, his sensitive portrayals of American Indians, and his superlative representations of landscape and wildlife. This handsome book - a companion volume to the acclaimed Charles M. Russell: A Catalogue Raisonné, edited by B. Byron Price - showcases many of the artist's best-known works and chronicles the sources and evolution of his style.Here are iconic images that have defined the West in the popular imagination for more than a century. The volume boasts reproductions, most in full color, of more than 150 of Russell's finest works in oil, bronze, and mixed media. Select examples of his drawings, watercolors, and illustrated letters as well as archival photographs place Russell's paintings and sculpture in historic and artistic context.This sumptuous volume is an essential addition to the library of every aficionado of American western art. In its pages readers will discover the work of a man whose ideal vision of the American experience continues to stir the spirit nearly a century after his death.

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On August 19, 1958, Clara Luper and thirteen Black youth walked into Katz Drug Store in Oklahoma City and sat down at the lunch counter. When they tried to order, they were denied service. As they sat in silence, refusing to leave, the surrounding white customers unleashed a torrent of threats and racial slurs. This first organized sit-in in Oklahoma—almost two years before the more famous sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina—sparked other demonstrations in Oklahoma and other states. Behold the Walls is Luper’s engrossing firsthand account of how the movement she helped launch ended legal racial segregation. First published in 1979, Behold the Walls now features a new introduction and 33 newly selected historical photos. Luper’s direct, unvarnished account captures the immediacy of the events she witnessed. As a Black woman, Luper refused to let either her race or her gender deter her from stepping forth as a leader. Born in 1923, Clara Luper taught history in Oklahoma public schools and led the NAACP Youth Council. The students who sat in at Katz Drug and other businesses belonged to that organization. Luper highlights the contributions of others, especially young people, in breaking down the walls of segregation in Oklahoma through numerous demonstrations, marches, and voter registration campaigns. This commemorative edition of Luper’s eye-opening autobiography, published near what would have been her 100th birthday, as well as the 65th anniversary of the sit-ins, offers invaluable insight into the history of protest in the early years of the civil rights movement. With racial inequality still at the forefront of national debate, Behold the Walls places Luper’s efforts in the larger national context of the struggle to resist injustice and inspire positive change.

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The Lakȟóta are among the best-known Native American peoples. In popular culture and even many scholarly works, they were once lumped together with others and called the Sioux. This book tells the full story of Lakȟóta culture and society, from their origins to the twenty-first century, drawing on Lakȟóta voices and perspectives. In Lakȟóta culture, “listening” is a cardinal virtue, connoting respect, and here authors Rani-Henrik Andersson and David C. Posthumus listen to the Lakȟóta, both past and present. The history of Lakȟóta culture unfolds in this narrative as the people lived it. Fittingly, Lakhota: An Indigenous History opens with an origin story, that of White Buffalo Calf Woman (Ptesanwin) and her gift of the sacred pipe to the Lakȟóta people. Drawing on winter counts, oral traditions and histories, and Lakȟóta letters and speeches, the narrative proceeds through such periods and events as early Lakȟóta-European trading, the creation of the Great Sioux Reservation, Christian missionization, the Plains Indian Wars, the Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee (1890), the Indian New Deal, and self-determination, as well as recent challenges like the #NoDAPL movement and management of Covid-19 on reservations. This book centers Lakȟóta experience, as when it shifts the focus of the Battle of Little Bighorn from Custer to fifteen-year-old Black Elk, or puts American Horse at the heart of the negotiations with the Crook Commission, or explains the Lakȟóta agenda in negotiating the Fort Laramie Treaty in 1851. The picture that emerges—of continuity and change in Lakȟóta culture from its distant beginnings to issues in our day—is as sweeping and intimate, and as deeply complex, as the lived history it encompasses.

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In August 1862, nineteen-year-old Edward G. Granger joined the 5th Michigan Cavalry Regiment as a second lieutenant. On August 20, 1863, the newly promoted Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer appointed Granger as one of his aides, a position Granger would hold until his death in August 1864. Many of the forty-four letters the young lieutenant wrote home during those two years, introduced and annotated here by leading Custer scholar Sandy Barnard, provide a unique look into the words and actions of his legendary commander. At the same time, Granger's correspondence offers an intimate picture of life on the picket lines of the Army of the Potomac and a staff officer's experiences in the field. As Custer's aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Granger was in an ideal position to record the inner workings of the Michigan Brigade's command echelon. Riding at Custer's side, he could closely observe one of America's most celebrated and controversial military figures during the very days that cemented his fame. With a keen eye and occasional humor, Granger describes the brigade's operations, including numerous battles and skirmishes. His letters also show the evolution of the Army of the Potomac's Cavalry Corps from the laughingstock of the Eastern Theater to an increasingly potent, well-led force. By the time of Granger's death at the Battle of Crooked Run, he and his comrades were on the verge of wresting mounted supremacy from their Confederate opponents. Amply illustrated with maps and photographs, An Aide to Custer gives readers an unprecedented view of the Civil War and one of its most important commanders, and unusual insight into the experience of a staff officer who served alongside him.

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Generations of Americans have seen the West as beyond federal control and direction. But the national government's presence in the West dates to before Lewis and Clark, and since 1789 a number of U.S. presidents have had a penetrating and long-lasting impact on the region. In Presidents Who Shaped the American West, noted historians Glenda Riley and Richard W. Etulain present startling analyses of chief executives and their policies, illuminating the long reach of presidential power. The authors begin each chapter by sketching a particular president's biography and explaining the political context in which he operated while in office. They then consider overarching actions and policies that affected both the nation and the region during the president's administration, such as Thomas Jefferson's augmentation of the West via the Louisiana Purchase, and Andrew Jackson's removal of American Indians from the Southeast to ""Indian Country"" in the West. Abraham Lincoln's promotion of the Homestead Act, a transcontinental railroad, and western territories and states free of slavery marked further extensions of presidential power in the region. Theodore Roosevelt's conservation efforts and Jimmy Carter's expansion of earlier policies reflected growing public concern with the West's finite natural resources and fragile natural environment. Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, Dwight D. Eisenhower's highway program, and Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society funneled federal funding into the West. In return for this largesse, some argued, the West paid the price of increased federal hegemony, and Ronald Reagan's presidency arguably curbed that power. Riley and Etulain also discuss the most recent presidential terms and the region's growing political power in Congress and the federal bureaucracy. With an accessible approach, Presidents Who Shaped the American West establishes the crucial and formative nature of the relationship between the White House and the West - and will encourage readers to continue examining this relationship.

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A gem of historical scholarship!"" - Vicki L. Ruiz, author of From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America How do intimate relationships reveal, reflect, enable, or enact the social and political dimensions of imperial projects? In particular, how did colonial relations in late-eighteenth- and nineteenth-century southern California implicate sexuality, marriage, and kinship ties? In Colonial Intimacies, Erika Pérez probes everyday relationships, encounters, and interactions to show how intimate choices about marriage, social networks, and godparentage were embedded in larger geopolitical concerns. Her work reveals, through the lens of social and familial intimacy, subtle tools of conquest and acts of resistance and accommodation among indigenous peoples, Spanish-Mexican settlers, Franciscan missionaries, and European and Anglo-American merchants. Concentrating on Catholic conversion, compadrazgo (baptismal sponsorship that often forged interethnic relations), and intermarriage, Pérez examines the ways indigenous and Spanish-Mexican women helped shape communities and sustained their culture. She uncovers an unexpected fluidity in Californian society - shaped by race, class, gender, religion, and kinship - that persisted through the colony's transition from Spanish to American rule.Colonial Intimacies focuses on the offspring of interethnic couples and their strategies for coping with colonial rule and negotiating racial and cultural identities. Pérez argues that these sons and daughters experienced conquest in different ways tied directly to their gender, and in turn faced different options in terms of marriage partners, economic status, social networks, and expressions of biculturality. Offering a more nuanced understanding of the colonial experience, Colonial Intimacies exposes the personal ties that undergirded imperial relationships in Spanish, Mexican, and early American California.

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In 1903 the famed ""Cowboy Artist,"" Charles M. Russell, presented his nephew Austin with a copy of the boy's adventure book Frank on the Prairie with some extraordinary enhancements. Actually, the volume already belonged to Austin, and his Uncle Charlie had borrowed it to add to its pages a series of original illustrations. This new facsimile edition of that copy, among the rarest of rare books, features little-known works of art by the artist. The prolific author of the novel Frank on the Prairie, Charles Austin Fosdick (1842-1915), who went by the pen name Harry Castlemon, was one of Russell's favorite storytellers. Castlemon's book, which first appeared in 1868 as part of the Gunboat Series of Books for Boys, recounts the adventures of young Frank and his friend Archie as they travel across the Old West. Clearly inspired by the story line, Russell produced eleven watercolors for his nephew's 1893 copy. They are beautifully reproduced here in full color, along with a single pencil sketch of mounted horsemen departing a fort. As Montana art collector Thomas Minckler explains in his essay, the extra-illustrated Frank on the Prairie displays the full range of Russell's signature subjects and themes: the regal American Indian, a pitched Indian battle of counting coup, the fur trader, an iconic buffalo hunt, the outlaw, a nighttime camp scene, a tomahawk peace pipe, and a herd of wild horses. All of these images, meticulously drawn and painted, are replicated in this facsimile version exactly as they first appeared in Austin's personal copy of the book.Frank on the Prairie was only one of a handful of books to which Russell added illustrations during his career. It is one of even fewer to contain watercolors. Showcasing Russell's artistry and his perspective on the American West, the volume is, in Minckler's words, ""one of Russell's most personalized works of art.

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For the past 180 years, the inherent power of indigenous tribes to govern themselves has been a central tenet of federal Indian law. Despite the U.S. Supreme Court's repeated confirmation of Native sovereignty since the early 1830s, it has, in the past half-century, incrementally curtailed the power of tribes to govern non-Indians on Indian reservations. The result, Dewi Ioan Ball argues, has been a ""silent revolution,"" mounted by particular justices so gradually and quietly that the significance of the Court's rulings has largely evaded public scrutiny. Ball begins his examination of the erosion of tribal sovereignty by reviewing the so-called Marshall trilogy, the three cases that established two fundamental principles: tribal sovereignty and the power of Congress to protect Indian tribes from the encroachment of state law. Neither the Supreme Court nor Congress has remained faithful to these principles, Ball shows. Beginning with Williams v. Lee, a 1959 case that highlighted the tenuous position of Native legal authority over reservation lands and their residents, Ball analyzes multiple key cases, demonstrating how the Supreme Court's decisions weakened the criminal, civil, and taxation authority of tribal nations. During an era when many tribes were strengthening their economies and preserving their cultural identities, the high court was undermining sovereignty. In Atkinson Trading Co. v. Shirley (2001) and Nevada v. Hicks (2001), for example, the Court all but obliterated tribal authority over non-Indians on Native land. By drawing on the private papers of Chief Justice Earl Warren and Justices Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Thurgood Marshall, William O. Douglas, Lewis F. Powell Jr., and Hugo L. Black, Ball offers crucial insight into federal Indian law from the perspective of the justices themselves. The Erosion of Tribal Power shines much-needed light on crucial changes to federal Indian law between 1959 and 2001 and discusses how tribes have dealt with the political and economic consequences of the Court's decisions.

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Oklahoma was in the throes of the Great Depression when Preston George acquired a cheap Kodak folding camera and took his first photographs of steam locomotives. As depression gave way to world war, George kept taking pictures, now with a Graflex camera that could capture moving trains. In this first book devoted solely to George's work, his black-and-white photographs constitute a striking visual documentary of steam-driven railroading in its brief but glorious heyday in the American Southwest. The pictures also form a remarkable artistic accomplishment in their own right. Prominent among the magnificent action images collected here are the engines that were George's passion - steam locomotives pulling long freights or strings of gleaming passenger cars through open country. But along with the fireworks of the heavier steam engines slogging through the mountains near the Arkansas border on the Kansas City Southern or climbing Raton Pass in New Mexico on the Santa Fe, George's photographs also record humbler fare, such as the short trains of the Frisco and Katy piloted by ancient light steamers, and the final years of that state's interurban lines. Augustus J. Veenendaal Jr.'s brief history of railroads in the Sooner State puts these images into perspective, as does a reminiscence by George's daughter Burnis on his life and his pursuit of railroad photography. With over 150 images and a wealth of historical and biographical information, this volume makes accessible to an audience beyond the most avid railfans the extent of Preston George's extraordinary achievement.

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In two decades of traveling throughout Mexico, Central America, and Europe, French priest Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg (1814-1874) amassed hundreds of indigenous manuscripts and printed books, including grammars and vocabularies that brought to light languages and cultures little known at the time. Although his efforts yielded many of the foundational texts of Mesoamerican studies - the pre-Columbian Codex Troana, the only known copies of the Popol Vuh and the indigenous dance drama Rabinal-Achi, and Diego De Landa's Relacián de la cosas de Yucatán - Brasseur earned disdain among scholars for his theories linking Maya writings to the mythical continent of Atlantis. In The Manuscript Hunter, translator Katia Sainson reasserts his standing as the founder of modern Maya studies, presenting three of his travel writings in English for the first time. While civil wars raged throughout Mexico and Central America and foreign interests sought access to the region's rich resources, Brasseur focused on uncovering Mesoamerica's mysterious past by examining its ancient manuscripts and living oral traditions. His ""Notes from a Voyage in Central America,"" ""From Guatemala City to Rabinal,"" and Voyage across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec document his travels in search of these texts and traditions. Brasseur's writings weave vivid geographical descriptions of Central America and Mexico during the mid-1800s with keen social and political analysis, all steeped in vast knowledge of the region's history and interest in its indigenous cultures. Coupled with Sainson's thoughtful introduction and annotations, these captivating, accessible accounts reveal Brasseur de Bourbourg's true accomplishments and offer an unrivaled view of the birth of Mesoamerican studies in the nineteenth century. Brasseur's writings not only depict Central America and Mexico through the eyes of a European traveler at a key moment, but also illuminate the remarkable efforts of one man to understand and preserve Mesoamerica's cultural traditions for all time.

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A graduate of West Point, General Hugh Lenox Scott (1853-1934) belonged to the same regiment as George Armstrong Custer. As a member of the Seventh Cavalry, Scott actually began his career at the Little Big Horn when in 1877 he helped rebury Custer's fallen soldiers. Yet Scott was no Custer. His lifelong aversion to violence in resolving disputes and abiding respect for American Indians earned him the reputation as one of the most adept peacemakers ever to serve in the U.S. Army. Sign Talker, an annotated edition of Scott's memoirs, gives new insight into this soldier-diplomat's experiences and accomplishments. Scott's original autobiography, first published in 1928, has remained out of print for decades. In that memoir, he recounted the many phases of his distinguished military career, beginning with his education at West Point and ending with World War I, when, as army chief of staff, he gathered the U.S. forces that saw ultimate victory in Europe. Sign Talker reproduces the first - and arguably most compelling - portion of the memoir, including Scott's involvement with Plains Indians and his service at western forts. In his in-depth introduction to this volume, editor R. Eli Paul places Scott's autobiography in a larger historical context. According to Paul, Scott stood apart from his fellow officers because of his enlightened views and forward-looking actions. Through Scott's own words, we learn how he became an expert in Plains Indian Sign Language so that he could communicate directly with Indians and bypass intermediaries. Possessing deep empathy for the plight of Native peoples and concern for the wrongs they had suffered, he played an important role in helping them achieve small, yet significant victories in the aftermath of the brutal Indian wars. As historians continue to debate the details of the Indian wars, and as we critically examine our nation's current foreign policy, the unique legacy of General Scott provides a model of military leadership. Sign Talker restores an undervalued diplomat to well-deserved prominence in the story of U.S.-Indian relations.

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In 1598, at the height of the Spanish Inquisition, New Mexico became Spain's northernmost New World colony. The censures of the Catholic Church reached all the way to Santa Fe, where in the mid-1660s, Doña Teresa Aguilera y Roche, the wife of New Mexico governor Bernardo López de Mendizábal, came under the Inquisition's scrutiny. She and her husband were tried in Mexico City for the crime of judaizante, the practice of Jewish rituals. Using the handwritten briefs that Doña Teresa prepared for her defense, as well as depositions by servants, ethnohistorian Frances Levine paints a remarkable portrait of daily life in seventeenth-century New Mexico. Doña Teresa Confronts the Spanish Inquisition also offers a rare glimpse into the intellectual and emotional life of an educated European woman at a particularly dangerous time in Spanish colonial history. New Mexico's remoteness attracted crypto-Jews and conversos, Jews who practiced their faith behind a front of Roman Catholicism. But were Doña Teresa and her husband truly conversos? Or were the charges against them simply their enemies' means of silencing political opposition? Doña Teresa had grown up in Italy and had lived in Colombia as the daughter of the governor of Cartagena. She was far better educated than most of the men in New Mexico. But education and prestige were no protection against persecution. The fine furnishings, fabrics, and tableware that Doña Teresa installed in the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe made her an object of suspicion and jealousy, and her ability to read and write in several languages made her the target of outlandish claims.Doña Teresa Confronts the Spanish Inquisition uncovers issues that resonate today: conflicts between religious and secular authority; the weight of evidence versus hearsay in court. Doña Teresa's voice - set in the context of the history of the Inquisition - is a powerful addition to the memory of that time.

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The largest by far of the fifty states, Alaska is also the state of greatest mystery and diversity. And, as Claus-M. Naske and Herman E. Slotnick show in this comprehensive survey, the history of Alaska's peoples and the development of its economy have matched the diversity of its land- and seascapes.Alaska: A History begins by examining the region's geography and the Native peoples who inhabited it for thousands of years before the first Europeans arrived. The Russians claimed northern North America by right of discovery in 1741. During their occupation of ""Russian America"" the region was little more than an outpost for fur hunters and traders. When the czar sold the territory to the United States in 1867, nobody knew what to do with ""Seward's Folly."" Mainland America paid little attention to the new acquisition until a rush of gold seekers flooded into the Yukon Territory. In 1906 Congress granted Alaska Territory a voteless delegate and in 1912 gave it a territorial legislature. Not until 1959, however, was Alaska's long-sought goal of statehood realized. During World War II, Alaska's place along the great circle route from the United States to Asia firmly established its military importance, which was underscored during the Cold War. The developing military garrison brought federal money and many new residents. Then the discovery of huge oil and natural-gas deposits gave a measure of economic security to the state. Alaska: A History provides a full chronological survey of the region's and state's history, including the precedent-setting Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, which compensated Native Americans for their losses; the effect of the oil industry and the trans-Alaska pipeline on the economy; the Exxon Valdez oil spill; and Alaska politics through the early 2000s.

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On the morning of July 30, 1883, President Chester A. Arthur embarked on a trip of historic proportions. His destination was Yellowstone National Park, established by an act of Congress only eleven years earlier. No sitting president had ever traveled this far west. Arthur's host and primary guide would be Philip H. Sheridan, the famed Union general. Also slated to join the expedition was a young photographer, Frank Jay Haynes. This elegant - and fascinating - book showcases Haynes's remarkable photographic album from their six-week journey. A premier nineteenth-century landscape photographer, F. Jay Haynes, as he was known professionally, originally compiled the leather-bound album as a commemorative piece. As only six copies are known to exist, it has rarely been seen. The album's 104 images are accompanied by captions written by General Sheridan's brother, Colonel Michael V. Sheridan, who wrote daily dispatches that were distributed by the Associated Press.In his informative introduction, historian Frank H. Goodyear III provides background about the excursion and explains the historic and aesthetic significance of Haynes's photographs. He then re-creates Arthur's journey by reintroducing Haynes's stunning images - along with Sheridan's original captions - including views of the Tetons and other landmarks; portraits of President Arthur, General Sheridan, and fellow travelers engaged in activities along the route; and images of the Shoshone and Arapaho leaders who gathered to greet the visiting party.Published on the occasion of the reopening of the Haynes Photography Shop in Yellowstone, A President in Yellowstone offers a unique entry into the park's storied past.

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Who counts as an American Indian? Which groups qualify as Indian tribes? These questions have become increasingly complex in the past several decades, and federal legislation and the rise of tribal-owned casinos have raised the stakes in the ongoing debate. In this revealing study, historian Mark Edwin Miller describes how and why dozens of previously unrecognized tribal groups in the southeastern states have sought, and sometimes won, recognition, often to the dismay of the Five Tribes - the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. Miller explains how politics, economics, and such slippery issues as tribal and racial identity drive the conflicts between federally recognized tribal entities like the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, and other groups such as the Southeastern Cherokee Confederacy that also seek sovereignty. Battles over which groups can claim authentic Indian identity are fought both within the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Federal Acknowledgment Process and in Atlanta, Montgomery, and other capitals where legislators grant state recognition to Indian-identifying enclaves without consulting federally recognized tribes with similar names. Miller's analysis recognizes the arguments on all sides - both the scholars and activists who see tribal affiliation as an individual choice, and the tribal governments that view unrecognized tribes as fraudulent. Groups such as the Lumbees, the Lower Muscogee Creeks, and the Mowa Choctaws, inspired by the civil rights movement and the War on Poverty, have evolved in surprising ways, as have traditional tribal governments. Describing the significance of casino gambling, the leader of one unrecognized group said, ""It's no longer a matter of red; it's a matter of green."" Either a positive or a negative development, depending on who is telling the story, the casinos' economic impact has clouded what were previously issues purely of law, ethics, and justice. Drawing on both documents and personal interviews, Miller unravels the tangled politics of Indian identity and sovereignty. His lively, clearly argued book will be vital reading for tribal leaders, policy makers, and scholars.

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For twenty years the Historical Atlas of Texas stood as a trusted resource for students and aficionados of the state. Now this key reference has been thoroughly updated and expanded - and even rechristened. Texas: A Historical Atlas more accurately reflects the Lone Star State at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Its 86 entries feature 175 newly designed maps - more than twice the number in the original volume - illustrating the most significant aspects of the state's history, geography, and current affairs. The heart of the book is its wealth of historical information. Sections devoted to indigenous peoples of Texas and its exploration and settlement offer more than 45 entries with visual depictions of everything from the routes of Spanish explorers to empresario grants to cattle trails. In another 31 articles, coverage of modern and contemporary Texas takes in hurricanes and highways, power plants and population trends. Practically everything about this atlas is new. All of the essays have been updated to reflect recent scholarship, while more than 30 appear for the first time, addressing such subjects as the Texas Declaration of Independence, early roads, slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, Texas-Oklahoma boundary disputes, and the tideland oil controversy. A dozen new entries for ""Contemporary Texas"" alone chart aspects of industry, agriculture, and minority demographics. Nearly all of the expanded essays are accompanied by multiple maps - everyone in full color. The most comprehensive, state-of-the-art work of its kind, Texas: A Historical Atlas is more than just a reference. It is a striking visual introduction to the Lone Star State.

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Mountain man and fur trader Jedediah Smith casts a heroic shadow. He was the first Anglo-American to travel overland to California via the Southwest, and he roamed through more of the West than anyone else of his era. His adventures quickly became the stuff of legend. Using new information and sifting fact from folklore, Barton H. Barbour now offers a fresh look at this dynamic figure.Barbour tells how a youthful Smith was influenced by notable men who were his family's neighbors, including a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition. When he was twenty-three, hard times leavened with wanderlust set him on the road west. Barbour delves into Smith's journals to a greater extent than previous scholars and teases out compelling insights into the trader's itineraries and personality. Use of an important letter Smith wrote late in life deepens the author's perspective on the legendary trapper. Through Smith's own voice, this larger-than-life hero is shown to be a man concerned with business obligations and his comrades' welfare, and even a person who yearned for his childhood. Barbour also takes a hard look at Smith's views of American Indians, Mexicans in California, and Hudson's Bay Company competitors and evaluates his dealings with these groups in the fur trade.Dozens of monuments commemorate Smith today. This readable book is another, giving modern readers new insight into the character and remarkable achievements of one of the West's most complex characters.

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For many years, Homeric Greek has been a standard textbook for first-year Greek courses in college and preparatory schools. It offers students the exciting experience of learning to read a Homeric poem in the original language, while introducing them to the fundamentals of ancient Greek. This fourth edition addresses the needs of today's teachers and students, while retaining those elements of the original book responsible for its longevity. Written and subsequently revised by Clyde Pharr, Homeric Greek was further revised by John Wright in 1985. Paula Debnar has revised the book once again by significantly expanding the introductory material in its first forty lessons. Notable features of this new edition include: · Clear definitions of grammatical terms and explanations of forms and syntax · Easy-to-read charts of grammatical paradigms · A new reference map of the Aegean region, including sites mentioned in the first book of the Iliad · An index of the book's section on grammar · A larger, more attractive format for the entire text, including more legible Greek characters Ideally suited for classroom use but also accessible to independent learners, this fourth edition of Homeric Greek ensures continued life for a book that has stood the test of time.

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For those who have progressed beyond introductory lessons, Intermediate Creek offers an expanded understanding of the language and culture of the Muskogee (Creek) and Seminole Indians. The first advanced textbook for the language, this book builds on the grammatical principles set forth in the authors' earlier book, Beginning Creek: Mvskoke Emponvkv, providing students with knowledge crucial to mastering more-complex linguistic constructions.Here are clear, comprehensive explanations of linguistic features such as the use of plural subject and object noun phrases; future tense and intentive mood; commands and causatives; postpositions and compound noun phrases; locatives; and sentences with multiple clauses. Linguistic anthropologist Pamela Innes and native speakers Linda Alexander and Bertha Tilkens have organized the book much as they did Beginning Creek. Each chapter begins with a presentation of the grammatical points to be learned, followed by new vocabulary, exercises, an essay relating the material to Muskogee and Seminole life, and suggested readings. Numerous diagrams and tables aid understanding, while an audio CD contains examples of spoken Mvskoke - conversations, a story, and a lullaby - and demonstrates the cadence and intonations of the language.Given resurgent interest in the Mvskoke language but a paucity of classroom resources for advanced study, Intermediate Creek not only offers a practical means for learning but also marks a significant step in preserving and revitalizing an important Native language.

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William K. Emerson's Encyclopedia of United States Army Insignia and Uniforms is the first comprehensive, well-illustrated, fully researched, and completely documented history of U.S. Army branch insignia and the uniforms on which those insignia were worn. More than two thousand photographs illustrate the actual branch insignia used by men and women of the U.S. Army during war and peace from American independence to the present. This book tells the story of the major army branches - infantry, artillery, cavalry, and engineers - as well as the service and support branches comprising doctors and nurses, chaplains, musicians, quartermasters, military police, and the many others whom have made up the U.S. Army.

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U.S. Highway 66 was always different from other roads. During the decades it served American travelers, Route 66 became the subject of a world-famous novel, an Oscar-winning film, a hit song, and a long running television program. The 2,000 mile concrete slab also became a seven-year obsession for Susan Croce Kelly and Quinta Scott. They traveled Route 66, photographing buildings, knocking on doors, and interviewing the people who had built the buildings and run the businesses along the highway. Drawing on the oral tradition of those rural Americans who populated the edge of old Route 66, Scott and Kelly have pieced together the story of a highway that was conceived in Tulsa, Oklahoma; linked Chicago to Los Angeles; and played a role in the great social changes of the early twentieth century.Using the words of the people themselves and documents they left behind, Kelly describes the life changes of Route 66 from the dirt-and-gravel days until the time when new technology and different life-styles decreed that it be abandoned to the small towns it had nurtured over the course of thirty years.Scott's photographic essay shows the faces of those 66 people and gives a feeling of what can be seen along the old highway today, from the seminal highway architecture to the grainfields of the Illinois prairie, the windbent trees of western Oklahoma, the emptiness of New Mexico, and the bustling pier where the highway ends on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.Route 66 uses oral history and photography as the basis for a human study of this country's most famous road. Historic times, dates, places, and events are described in the words of men and women who were there: driving the highway, cooking hamburgers, creating pottery, and pumping gas. As much as the concrete, gravel, and tar spread in a sweeping arc from Chicago to Santa Monica, those people are Route 66. Their stories and portraits are the biography of the highway.

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The Indian history of the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, and particularly of the Ohio Valley, is so complex that it can be properly clarified only with the visual aid of maps. The Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History, in a sequence of thirty-three newly researched maps printed in as many as five colors, graphically displays the movement of Indian communities from 1640 to about 1871, when treaty making between Indian tribes and the United States government came to an end. History was shaped in this part of North America by intertribal warfare, refugee movements, epidemics of European-introduced diseases, French and English wars and trade rivalry, white population advances, Indian resistance, Indian treaties deeding land to state and national governments, and imperfect arrangements for reservations, removal, and allotment of land. The changing pattern of Indian village locations as a result of all these factors is shown on the maps. Each map is highlighted by accompanying text, written as if the author were pointing out specific places on the map. Eighty-one illustrations convey a realistic impression of the land and its people.

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Techniques of the Selling Writer provides solid instruction for people who want to write and sell fiction, not just to talk and study about it. It gives the background, insights, and specific procedures needed by all beginning writers. Here one can learn how to group words into copy that moves, movement into scenes, and scenes into stories; how to develop characters, how to revise and polish, and finally, how to sell the product.No one can teach talent, but the practical skills of the professional writer's craft can certainly be taught. The correct and imaginative use of these kills can shorten any beginner's apprenticeship by years.This is the book for writers who want to turn rejection slips into cashable checks.

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The enlisted men in the United States Army during the Indian Wars (1866-91) need no longer be mere shadows behind their historically well-documented commanding officers.As member of the regular army, these men formed an important segment of our usually slighted national military continuum and, through their labors, combats, and endurance, created the framework of law and order within which settlement and development become possible. We should know more about the common soldier in our military past, and here he is.The rank and file regular, then as now, was psychologically as well as physically isolated from most of his fellow Americans. The people were tired of the military and its connotations after four years of civil war. They arrayed their army between themselves and the Indians, paid its soldiers their pittance, and went about the business of mushrooming the nation's economy.Because few enlisted men were literarily inclined, many barely able to scribble their names, most previous writings about them have been what officers and others had to say. To find out what the average soldier of the post-Civil War frontier thought, Don Rickey, Jr., asked over three hundred living veterans to supply information about their army experiences by answering questionnaires and writing personal accounts. Many of them who had survived to the mid-1950's contributed much more through additional correspondence and personal interviews.Whether the soldier is speaking for himself or through the author in his role as commentator-historian, this is the first documented account of the mass personality of the rank and file during the Indian Wars, and is only incidentally a history of those campaigns.

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Side by side with the westward drift of white Americans in the 1830's was the forced migration of the Five Civilized Tribes from Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Both groups were deployed against the tribes of the prairies, both breaking the soil of the undeveloped hinterland. Both were striving in the years before the Civil War to found schools, churches, and towns, as well as to preserve orderly development through government and laws.In this book Grant Foreman brings to light the singular effect the westward movement of Indians had in the cultivation and settlement of the Trans-Mississippi region. It shows the Indian genius at its best and conveys the importance of the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles to the nascent culture of the plains. Their achievements between 1830 and 1860 were of vast importance in the making of America.

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Lincolnshire, 1537. Amid England’s religious turmoil, fifteen-year-old Anne Askew is forced to take her dead sister’s place in an arranged marriage. The witty, well-educated gentleman’s daughter is determined to free herself from her abusive husband, harsh in-laws, and the cruel strictures of her married life. But this is the England of Henry VIII, where religion and politics are dangerously entangled. A young woman of Anne’s fierce independence, Reformist faith, uncanny command of plainspoken scripture, and—not least—connections to Queen Katheryn Parr’s court cannot long escape official notice, or censure. In a deft blend of history and imagination, award-winning novelist Rilla Askew brings to life a young woman who defied the conventions of her time, ultimately braving torture and the fire of martyrdom for her convictions. A rich evocation of Reformation England, from the fenlands of Lincolnshire to the teeming religious underground of London to the court of Henry VIII, this gripping tale of defiance is as pertinent today as it was in the sixteenth century. While skillfully portraying a significant historical figure—one of the first female writers known to have composed in the English language—Prize for the Fire renders the inner life of Anne Askew with a depth and immediacy that transcend time.

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Many Anglo-Americans in the nineteenth century regarded Indian tribes as little more than illiterate bands of savages in need of "civilizing." Few were willing to recognize that one of the major Southeastern tribes targeted for removal west of the Mississippi already had an advanced civilization with its own system of writing and rich literary tradition. In Literacy and Intellectual Life in the Cherokee Nation, 1820–1906, James W. Parins traces the rise of bilingual literacy and intellectual life in the Cherokee Nation during the nineteenth century—a time of intense social and political turmoil for the tribe. By the 1820s, Cherokees had perfected a system for writing their language—the syllabary created by Sequoyah—and in a short time taught it to virtually all their citizens. Recognizing the need to master the language of the dominant society, the Cherokee Nation also developed a superior public school system that taught students in English. The result was a literate population, most of whom could read the Cherokee Phoenix, the tribal newspaper founded in 1828 and published in both Cherokee and English. English literacy allowed Cherokee leaders to deal with the white power structure on their own terms: Cherokees wrote legal briefs, challenged members of Congress and the executive branch, and bargained for their tribe as white interests sought to take their land and end their autonomy. In addition, many Cherokee poets, fiction writers, essayists, and journalists published extensively after 1850, paving the way for the rich literary tradition that the nation preserves and fosters today. Literary and Intellectual Life in the Cherokee Nation, 1820–1906 takes a fascinating look at how literacy served to unite Cherokees during a critical moment in their national history, and advances our understanding of how literacy has functioned as a tool of sovereignty among Native peoples, both historically and today.

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The general store in late-nineteenth-century America was often the economic heart of a small town. Merchants sold goods necessary for residents' daily survival and extended credit to many of their customers; cash-poor farmers relied on merchants for their economic well-being just as the retailers needed customers to purchase their wares. But there was more to this mutual dependence than economics. Store owners often helped found churches and other institutions, and they and their customers worshiped together, sent their children to the same schools, and in times of crisis, came to one another's assistance.For this social and cultural history, Linda English combed store account ledgers from the 1870s and 1880s and found in them the experiences of thousands of people in Texas and Indian Territory. Particularly revealing are her insights into the everyday lives of women, immigrants, and ethnic and racial minorities, especially African Americans and American Indians.A store's ledger entries yield a wealth of detail about its proprietor, customers, and merchandise. As a local gathering place, the general store witnessed many aspects of residents' daily lives - many of them recorded, if hastily, in account books. In a small community with only one store, the clientele would include white, black, and Indian shoppers and, in some locales, Mexican American and other immigrants. Flour, coffee, salt, potatoes, tobacco, domestic fabrics, and other staples typified most purchases, but occasional luxury items reflected the buyer's desire for refinement and upward mobility. Recognizing that townspeople often accessed the wider world through the general store, English also traces the impact of national concerns on remote rural areas - including Reconstruction, race relations, women's rights, and temperance campaigns.In describing the social status of store owners and their economic and political roles in both small agricultural communities and larger towns, English fleshes out the fascinating history of daily life in Indian Territory and Texas in a time of transition.

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The Ch’ol Maya who live in the western Mexican state of Chiapas are direct descendants of the Maya of the Classic period. Exploring their history and culture, volume editor Karen Bassie-Sweet and the other authors assembled here uncover clear continuity between contemporary Maya rituals and beliefs and their ancient counterparts. With evocative and thoughtful essays by leading scholars of Maya culture, The Ch’ol Maya of Chiapas, the first collection to focus fully on the Ch’ol Maya, takes readers deep into ancient caves and reveals new dimensions of Ch’ol cosmology. In contemporary Ch’ol culture the contributors find a wealth of historical material that they then interweave with archaeological data to yield surprising and illuminating insights. The colonial and twentieth-century descendants of the Postclassic period Ch’ol and Lacandon Ch’ol, for instance, provide a window on the history and conquest of the early Maya. Several authors examine Early Classic paintings in the Ch’ol ritual cave known as Jolja that document ancient cave ceremonies not unlike Ch’ol rituals performed today, such as petitioning a cave-dwelling mountain spirit for health, rain, and abundant harvests. Other essays investigate deities identified with caves, mountains, lightning, and meteors to trace the continuity of ancient Maya beliefs through the centuries, in particular the ancient origin of contemporary rituals centering on the Ch’ol mountain deity Don Juan. An appendix containing three Ch’ol folktales and their English translations rounds out the volume. Charting paths literal and figurative to earlier trade routes, pre-Columbian sites, and ancient rituals and beliefs, The Ch’ol Maya of Chiapas opens a fresh, richly informed perspective on Maya culture as it has evolved and endured over the ages.

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Now that the West is no longer so wild, it's easy to dismiss Buffalo Bill Cody's world-famous Wild West shows as promoters of stereotypes and clichés. But looking at this unique American genre from the Native American point of view provides thought-provoking new perspectives. Focusing on the experiences of Native performers and performances, Linda Scarangella McNenly begins her examination of these spectacles with Buffalo Bill's 1880s pageants. She then traces the continuing performance of these acts, still a feature of regional celebrations in both Canada and the United States - and even at Euro Disney. Drawing on interviews with contemporary performers and descendants of twentieth-century performers, McNenly elicits insider perspectives to suggest new interpretations of their performances and experiences; she also uses these insights to analyze archival materials, especially photographs. Some Native performers saw Wild West shows not necessarily as demeaning, but rather as opportunities - for travel, for employment, for recognition, and for the preservation and expression of important cultural traditions. Other Native families were able to guide their own careers and even create their own Wild West shows.Today, Native performers at Buffalo Bill Days in Sheridan, Wyoming, wear their own regalia and choreograph their own performances. Through dancing and music, they express their own vision of a contemporary Native identity based on powwow cultures. Proud of their skills and successes, Native performers at Euro Disney are establishing promising careers. The effects of colonialism are undeniable, yet McNenly's study reveals how these Native peoples have adapted and re-created Wild West shows to express their own identities and to advance their own goals.

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The U.S. Senate is so sharply polarized along partisan and ideological lines today that it’s easy to believe it was always this way. But in the turbulent 1960s, even as battles over civil rights and the war in Vietnam dominated American politics, bipartisanship often prevailed. One key reason: two remarkable leaders who remain giants of the Senate—Republican leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois and Democratic leader Mike Mansfield of Montana, the longest-serving majority leader in Senate history, so revered for his integrity, fairness, and modesty that the late Washington Post reporter David Broder called him “the greatest American I ever met.” The political and personal relationship of these party leaders, extraordinary by today’s standards, is the lens through which Marc C. Johnson examines the Senate in that tumultuous time. Working together, with the Democrat often ceding public leadership to his Republican counterpart, Mansfield and Dirksen passed landmark civil rights and voting rights legislation, created Medicare, and helped bring about a foundational nuclear arms limitation treaty. The two leaders could not have been more different in personality and style: Mansfield, a laconic, soft-spoken, almost shy college history professor, and Dirksen, an aspiring actor known for his flamboyance and sense of humor, dubbed the “Wizard of Ooze” by reporters. Drawing on extensive Senate archives, Johnson explores the congressional careers of these iconic leaders, their intimate relationships with Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and their own close professional friendship based on respect, candor, and mutual affection. A study of politics but also an analysis of different approaches to leadership, this is a portrait of a U.S. Senate that no longer exists—one in which two leaders, while exercising partisan political responsibilities, could still come together to pass groundbreaking legislation—and a reminder of what is possible.

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From its designation in 1926 to the rise of the interstates nearly sixty years later, Route 66 was, in John Steinbeck’s words, America’s Mother Road, carrying countless travelers the 2,400 miles between Chicago and Los Angeles. Whoever they were—adventurous motorists or Dustbowl migrants, troops on military transports or passengers on buses, vacationing families or a new breed of tourists—these travelers had to eat. The story of where they stopped and what they found, and of how these roadside offerings changed over time, reveals twentieth-century America on the move, transforming the nation’s cuisine, culture, and landscape along the way. Author T. Lindsay Baker, a glutton for authenticity, drove the historic route—or at least the 85 percent that remains intact—in a four-cylinder 1930 Ford station wagon. Sparing us the dust and bumps, he takes us for a spin along Route 66, stopping to sample the fare at diners, supper clubs, and roadside stands and to describe how such venues came and went—even offering kitchen-tested recipes from historic eateries en route. Start-ups that became such American fast-food icons as McDonald’s, Dairy Queen, Steak ’n Shake, and Taco Bell feature alongside mom-and-pop diners with flocks of chickens out back and sit-down restaurants with heirloom menus. Food-and-drink establishments from speakeasies to drive-ins share the right-of-way with other attractions, accommodations, and challenges, from the Whoopee Auto Coaster in Lyons, Illinois, to the piles of “chat” (mining waste) in the Tri-State District of Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma, to the perils of driving old automobiles over the Jericho Gap in the Texas Panhandle or Sitgreaves Pass in western Arizona. Describing options for the wealthy and the not-so-well-heeled, from hotel dining rooms to ice cream stands, Baker also notes the particular travails African Americans faced at every turn, traveling Route 66 across the decades of segregation, legal and illegal. So grab your hat and your wallet (you’ll probably need cash) and come along for an enlightening trip down America’s memory lane—a westward tour through the nation’s heartland and history, with all the trimmings, via Route 66.

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A vast and desolate region, the Texas-New Mexico borderlands have long been an ideal setting for intrigue and illegal dealings-never more so than in the lawless early days of cattle trafficking and trade among the Plains tribes and Comancheros. This book takes us to the borderlands in the 1860s and 1870s for an in-depth look at Union-Confederate skullduggery amid the infamous Comanche-Comanchero trade in stolen Texas livestock. In 1862, the Confederates abandoned New Mexico Territory and Texas west of the Pecos River, fully expecting to return someday. Meanwhile, administered by Union troops under martial law, the region became a hotbed of Rebel exiles and spies, who gathered intelligence, disrupted federal supply lines, and plotted to retake the Southwest. Using a treasure trove of previously unexplored documents, authors James Bailey Blackshear and Glen Sample Ely trace the complicated network of relationships that drew both Texas cattlemen and Comancheros into these borderlands, revealing the urban elite who were heavily involved in both the legal and illegal transactions that fueled the region’s economy.Confederates and Comancheros deftly weaves a complex tale of Texan overreach and New Mexican resistance, explores cattle drives and cattle rustling, and details shady government contracts and bloody frontier justice. Peopled with Rebels and bluecoats, Comanches and Comancheros, Texas cattlemen and New Mexican merchants, opportunistic Indian agents and Anglo arms dealers, this book illustrates how central these contested borderlands were to the history of the American West.

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