Prostitution, gambling, and saloons were a vital, if not universally welcome, part of life in frontier boomtowns. In Saloons, Prostitutes, and Temperance in Alaska Territory, Catherine Holder Spude explores the rise and fall of these enterprises in Skagway, Alaska, between the gold rush of 1897 and the enactment of Prohibition in 1918. Her gritty ......
A History from the Napoleonic Wars to the War in Ukraine
With the invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin's Russia seems to have stepped out of time, reverting to an imperial era of conquest and expansion. But as Roger Reese points out in this comprehensive new history, Russia's way of war has changed little from one century to the next, one regime to another, from the army of the tsar to the army of today. ......
California's Kern River, the Environment, and the Making of Western Water Law
When Europeans first arrived at what is now California's San Joaquin Valley, they found a vast landscape of wetlands, small ponds, riparian forests, and grasslands surrounding three large swampland lakes. What greets a visitor to the region today is a dramatically different view of mile after mile of row crops, vineyards, orchards, and grazing ......
The Battle of the Rosebud may well be the largest Indian battle ever fought in the American West. The monumental clash on June 17, 1876, along Rosebud Creek in southeastern Montana pitted George Crook and his Shoshone and Crow allies against Sioux and Northern Cheyennes under Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. It set the stage for the battle that ......
"What would rodeo look like if we took it as a record, not of human triumph and resilience, but of human imperfection and stubbornness?" asks animal historian Susan Nance. Against the backdrop of the larger histories of ranching, cattle, horses, and the environment in the West, this book explores how the evolution of rodeo has reflected rural ......
For years Robert Newton Baskin (1837-1918) may have been the most hated man in Utah. Yet his promotion of federal legislation against polygamy in the late 1800s and his work to bring the Mormon territory into a republican form of government were pivotal in Utah's achievement of statehood. The results of his efforts also contributed to the ......
Creek Political Culture in the Native South, 1750-1815
Although the Creeks constitute a sovereign nation today, the concept of the nation meant little to their ancestors in the Native South. Rather, as Steven Peach contends in Rivers of Power, the Creeks of present-day Georgia and Alabama conceptualized rivers as the basis of power, leadership, and governance in early America. An original work of ......
Creek Political Culture in the Native South, 1750-1815
Although the Creeks constitute a sovereign nation today, the concept of the nation meant little to their ancestors in the Native South. Rather, as Steven Peach contends in Rivers of Power, the Creeks of present-day Georgia and Alabama conceptualized rivers as the basis of power, leadership, and governance in early America. An original work of ......
The Mayas believed the four gods, the Bacabs, held up the sky. The Bacabs were also invoked to heal disease. Ritual of the Bacabs: A Book of Maya Incantations is the first English translation of this Maya manuscript, dating back to colonial times. Discovered in the early twentieth century, the manuscript's origins are traced to the golden ......
