Working the Range: Essays on the History of Western Land Management and the Environment

(Hardback)

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This collection of twelve original essays explores the history of people interacting with the land. The first section examines how Native Americans attempted to maintain control of their lands. The second includes three essays that are concerned with land speculation, from the earliest penetration of the Europeans into the interior of America to the last frontiers of West Texas and Northern Mexico. A third section considers land policy and governmental attempts at regulation. The fourth documents environmental abuse and alteration by politicians as well as agriculturalists, farmers, and ranchers. Human interaction with the land is thus highlighted as westward expansion is chronicled.

Author Bio

JOHN R. WUNDER is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is the author of Retained by The People: A History of American Indians and the Bill of Rights (1994), Inferior Courts, Superior Justice: Justices of the Peace on the Northwest Frontier, 1853-1889 (Greenwood, 1979), and other books and articles.