3 comments about Home on the Range: A Century on the High Plains.

1. I am from Rawlins County and this book is a very accurate rendition of life in that part of the country! It makes me want to go back home! Dorothy was right! There is no place like home!



2. Even if you never lived in Kansas, you will enjoy this book. For me, it invoked all I remember hearing from my grandparents, parents and what I experienced growing up in Kansas.



3. This is one of the best books I've read in ages. I'm a displaced Kansan, but I think Dickenson's writing would appeal to anyone! A great read!

1 comments about Missouri Irish, The Original History of the Irish in Missouri, including St. Louis, Kansas City and Trails West.

1. Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RD5S2J1QQM2EH Here is a slide show based upon illustrations from this book, along with a lost Irish American Song, published in Missouri in earlier days. Based upon sheet music discovered in this book. Noted Missouri Irish singer, Peter Reilly Adams performs this forgotten song from nearly a century ago.

No comments about Missouri: A History.

2 comments about The Cattle Towns.

1. "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.



2. 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.

No comments about Schoolwomen of the Prairies and Plains: Personal Narratives from Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, 1860S-1920s.

4 comments about Cowboy Culture: A Saga of Five Centuries.

1. Currently there is no review here for this fine book, and it deserves one. For starters, the title for this well-researched history of 400 years of cattle raising in North America is not exactly right. It should be called "Cattle Culture," because cattle and not cowboys are at the center of the story the author tells. And his story traces their introduction to the New World by Columbus in 1494 through to the end of the open ranges in the American West in the late 1800s. Horses, also introduced by the Spanish, are no less a part of that story, along with the cattlemen who owned, bought, sold and sometimes stole cattle, and the horsemen (vaqueros, buckaroos, and cowboys) who worked the cattle.
   
   Readers learn a great deal about cattle as a business, how the price of livestock fluctuated with demand and depended always on getting cattle to market, often many hundreds of difficult miles away. In some periods, the value of cattle was not in the beef on the hoof but in the hides and tallow. The California vaqueros, we learn, were not just herders but also expert slaughterers of cattle.
   
   Not surprisingly, a great swath of Texas history is interwoven with the rising and falling fortunes of cattlemen, and the author puts together a detailed picture of the industry as it emerged there in the mid-19th century, foundered during the Civil War, and then flourished as the railheads worked west into Kansas. But the cattle drives from Texas to cow-towns like Abilene were only some of the many that the century witnessed, as herds were driven in various directions, sometimes by west-bound settlers on the Oregon Trail, or often to meet the sudden demand for beef wherever there were gold strikes. The author provides accounts of many of these, illustrated with maps.
   
   There are many black and white period photographs in the book, which challenge the back-lot Hollywood imagery that readers are likely to have of the West. There are also informative illustrations, like that of the early western bridle called a jáquima by the Spanish-speaking vaqueros, later anglicized to "hackamore" by their American counterparts. The reader learns of many words flowing from Spanish into English, including "ranch," from the Spanish "rancho." The meanings of Spanish words like "hacienda" (a place where work is done) are also clarified. There are also illustrations of how to throw ropes in different ways to catch cattle and horses, how to dally a rope around a saddle horn, and the design of various kinds of barbed wire.
   
   One chapter, "Bunkhouse Culture," is devoted to describing the fraternity of young men, mostly from the South, who came to be the Texas "cow-boys" that eventually emerged as the mythic figures on horseback that excited popular imagination. The author describes the unspoken "code" that bound them together and notes their quick passing from history as long-range drovers when barbed wire brought an end to the open range starting in the 1870s. About the same time, ranching as a corporate enterprise transformed the old conditions of loyalty between cowman and cowboy that characterized the earlier years. And so 400 years of history drew to a close.
   
   At 300+ pages, plus another 50 of notes and an index, the book is not a quick page-turner. It reads instead like a very informative and often entertaining textbook on its subject, drawing heavily on contemporary accounts from diaries, journals, and newspapers. Doing so, it brings the past to life with people, personalities, and arresting incidents. I'm happy to recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the American West, the origins and development of the cattle industry, and the interplay between cattle, politics, economics, and social history.



2. I enjoyed it. The title sounds like a college textbook, but the style is very conversational and there are stories on every page. The author clearly relishes his subject. The writing is crisp and the humor is understated. He puts the cattle business in a very helpful historical perspective. Although it's not a page turner, I always looked forward to picking it up. I also expect to get more out of it the next time I read it.



3. I read this book for a term paper and found it very informative and interesting!



4. I bought this as a Valentine's Day present for my husband, after he got intrigued by Old West history while viewing the dvd collection of "Gunsmoke: the first season" which was also an Amazon purchase (Christmas present.) We are finding it to be well written and cohesive, with lots of fascinating details, and good quotes from primary (eyewitness) sources. So much of our self image as Americans is rooted in our ideas about the Old West. If you want to separate fact from fiction about this time and region of USA history you will enjoy this account.

1 comments about Flag Burning and Free Speech: The Case of Texas v. Johnson.

1. Pros: Goldstein announces his bias in the preface to alert readers to possible slants in his writing style. It's an easy read and organized well.
   
   Cons: I find that he uses too many citations and includes little analysis. Insights and rhetorical questions are pretty surface-level.
   
   Overall, it's a good read and poses some interesting questions.

3 comments about True Tales of Old-Time Kansas: Revised Edition.

1. Here's one for the history buffs out there. Kids and adults, read about frontier life in Kansas. This is an excellent addition to any library collection. -Native Kansan



2. I live in New york on the Island. I've always, always had a fascination with the old west, and in particular the state of Kansas.. even though I haven't yet been there. For Christmas this year, my mum gave me among other things, an actual Kansas license plate along with this book. I started reading it right away and it has been entirely engrossing. Very interesting individual tales, some are pretty short, so this is the perfect book to read while on the train. I love it.



3. Very good book. I have had this book for years and purchased for a friend.

2 comments about Flint Hills Cowboys: Tales of the Tallgrass Prairie.

1. Flint Hills Cowboys: Tales Of The Tallgrass Prairie by Jim Hoy (Professor of English and Director of the Center for Great Plains Studies at Emporia State University) is the engaging combination of personal memories, frontier history, and folklore tales about the prairie lands of the Flint Hills country of eastern Kansas. A remarkable and inherently fascinating anthology of stories and anecdotes of the rodeo, ranching, ranch hands, and working with stubborn cattle and contrary horses, Flint Hills Cowboys reflects upon a half-century of life and times in the Flint Hills. As a superbly presented compendium of action, humor, lore, and history, Jim Hoy's Flint Hills Cowboys is very strongly recommended and entertaining reading for all anyone with an interest in the landscape, people and history of the Flint Hills country.



2. Flint Hills Cowboys by James F. Hoy places you on the saddle of a horse loping through the historic Flint Hills of Kansas. Mr. Hoy himself grew up in the Hills and was raised working cattle alongside some of the best cowboys the region has reared. Chock-full of authentic and personal stories, the reader continually feels like one of the cowboys living the exciting, and difficult, life of a Flint Hills Cowboy.
   The book both informs and delights. Mr. Hoy lacks pretentiousness and his writing is accessible. After completing the book, it was obvious to me that he desires only one thing: to share his love and passion for the Flint Hills of Kansas and all the colorful and honorable people who dwell there.

4 comments about Doing Oral History.

1. Ritchie covers the topic like a blanket. Everything from how to manage one's collection and stay out of legal trouble with the interviewee (and anyone you may discuss); down to remembering to punch out the little tabs on the back of each cassette in order to prevent accidental erasure.

   This is a very complete and very practical guide to the processes and thinking of our country's oral historians from an author who's been in the middle of some pretty interesting stories.




2. This book delivers on what it promises. Beware, however, that while the author addresses interviews conducted by individual researchers, the book isn't much good for people looking to do that sort of work. Oral history is a more specific kind of work than what your ninth grade history teacher may have led you to believe (go figure!). I still think that a chapter addressing interview techniques would have been appropriate in the structure of the whole book. As it is, the text is written in q&a format, which annoyed me slightly, but it serves.
   
   Verdict: useful for anyone looking to do oral history per se and wanting a guide to the various theoretical and practical issues involved.



3. David Remnick's Lenin's Tomb deals with the fledgling days of the Soviet Union's collapse. Remnick interviews numerous people ranging from coal miners to Stalin's grandson, Yevgeny Djugashvili. Remnick's interview with Djugashvili ends with a toast; Djugashvili's toast is basically an apotheosis to Stalin, and ends with "to Stalin!" Remnick describes a wave of nausea, but complied with the toast. Remnick's professionalism, however difficult, is an example of the methods and ethics of conducting an interview, and the basis of Donald A. Ritchie's Doing Oral History. Ritchie's manual is structured as an interview, with questions that address the methods and ethics of conducting an oral history interview. Ritchie's manual places interviews in the social sciences and away from journalism. Doing Oral History is a fundamental manual on how to proceed with an interview, and for it to be grounded in method and ethics.
   Ritchie defines oral history: "Memory is the core of oral history, from which meaning can be extracted and preserved. Simply put, oral history collects memories and personal commentaries of historical significance through recorded interviews" (19). Ritchie's manual provides not only the legal and technical concerns of doing an oral history interview, but the fundamental methods of conducting a successful interview. The interviewee is the focus, and should not be forced into answers, because forceful interviewers risk inaccurate responses (122). The impulse to ask hard questions must be tempered, and creatively asked; Ritchie suggests quoting from another source, and allow the interviewee to respond to the quote instead of forceful questions. These examples of methodology and ethics while interviewing is the core of Doing Oral History, and the purpose is to provide future researchers with the most accurate interview that can be made; limiting disruptive variables such as forceful questions, and providing a primary source that can be trusted.
   Not only does Ritchie's manual describe the methods and ethics of doing oral history, but the fundamental reason for it. The sole purpose to record interviews is to deposit them into an archive for future research (111). The future researchers have more liberty to criticize and analyze the interviewee, than the interviewer originally had (122). Researchers that use oral history interviews can analyze them discretely like any source, and not be concerned necessarily with the feelings of the interviewee. The interview itself can be accurately studied, if it follows the methods and ethics of Doing Oral History; this manual presents the methods and concerns of a social scientist, and provides future researchers a source that can be trusted if its methods are followed.
   Donald A. Ritchie's Doing Oral History is a necessary manual to consult before engaging in an oral history interview. It provides the methods, ethics, and technical advice, to begin an interview. Beyond the methods of the social scientist, Doing Oral History provides the meaning behind oral history, which is to provide an invaluable source for future researchers. Those future researchers will have more freedom to criticize the method, and the interviewee; like Remnick's interview with Djugashvili; instead of challenging the ideals of Stalinism our interviewer records his response to the toast, "`To Stalin,' I said. And May God forgive me," this interview allows later researchers to analyze the nostalgia for the perceived order of Stalinism, during the chaotic times of the Soviet collapse.
   



4. We first heard about this book on the radio back in early 1990s...it is a marvelous tool to guide an interview of grandparent or parent, or even self, to record one's memories and family history. The book provided a concise outline to follow so that family history, stories, and memories can be passed down on DVD or CD. We have used it with our parents and given copies to siblings and grandchildren, and learned the benefit following the passing of a loved one - priceless! We even plan to do ourselves for our children. Probably the best and most unique legacy to leave!