About the Book
The Great Plains is a vast expanse of grasslands stretching from the Rocky Mountains to the Missouri River and from the Rio Grande to the coniferous forests of Canada--an area more than eighteen hundred miles from north to south and more than five hundred miles from east to west. The Great Plains region includes all or parts of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The region, once labelled "the Great American Desert," is now more often called the "heartland," or, sometimes, "the breadbasket of the world." Its immense distances, flowing grasslands, sparse population, enveloping horizons, and dominating sky convey a sense of expansiveness, even emptiness or loneliness, a reaction to too much space and one's own meagre presence in it. The Plains region is the home of the Dust Bowl, the massacre at Wounded Knee, the North-West Rebellion, the Tulsa race riot, the Lincoln County War, the purported Roswell alien landing, and the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.
From it have emerged furs, cattle, corn, wheat, oil, gas, and coal, as well as jazz, literature, and political reform.It has been inhabited for more than twelve thousand years, since Paleo-Indians hunted mammoth and bison. More recent emigrants came from eastern North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia, resulting in a complex and distinctive ethnic mosaic. With 1,316 entries contributed by more than one thousand scholars, this groundbreaking reference work captures what is vital and interesting about the Great Plains--from its temperamental climate to its images and icons, its historical character, its folklore, and its politics. Thoroughly illustrated, annotated, and indexed, this remarkable compendium of information and analysis will prove the definitive and indispensable resource on the Great Plains for many years to come. David J. Wishart is a professor of geography at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is the author of An Unspeakable Sadness: The Dispossession of the Nebraska Indians and The Fur Trade of the American West: A Geographical Synthesis, both published by the University of Nebraska Press.The Encyclopedia of the Great Plains is a cooperative project of the Center for Great Plains Studies and the University of Nebraska Press, with the generous support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the University of Nebraska Foundation, and the Nebraska Humanities Council.
About the Author :
David J. Wishart is a professor of geography at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He is the author of An Unspeakable Sadness: The Dispossession of the Nebraska Indians and The Fur Trade of the American West: A Geographical Synthesis, both published by the University of Nebraska Press.
Review :
"At first glance the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains might be mistaken for a coffee-table book. Large in format, attratively illustrated, beautifully bound, it could well serve that purpose. But, as David J. Wishart explains in his introduction, the aim is to instruct rather than entertain. More specifically, it is to produce a standard work of reference on a region hitherto poorly defined in the public mind. First conceived back in 1989, it has taken almost a decade of intensive work by a team of some twenty editors and research assistants to complete. In short, it is the product of a massive collaborative effort that has involved soliciting and collating submissions from almost a thousand experts on virtually every aspect of life on the plains. There are 1,316 entries ... dealing with just about everything you might conceivably want to know about what was once called the Great American Desert."--Times Literary Supplement, Novemeber 25, 2005
