The Great Plains

Walter Prescott Webb

U of Nebraska Press, 1959 - History - 525 pages

This classic description of the interaction between the vast central plains of America and the people who lived there has, since its first publication in 1931, been one of the most influential, widely known, and controversial works in western history. Arguing that "the Great Plains environment. . .constitutes a geographic unity whose influences have been so powerful as to put a characteristic mark upon everything that survives within its borders," Webb singles out the revolver, barbed wire, and the windmill as evidence of the new phase of civilization required for settlement of that arid, treeless region. Webb draws on history, anthropology, geography, demographics, climatology, and economics to substantiate his thesis that the 98th meridian constituted an institutional fault?comparable to a geological fault?at which "practically every institution that was carried across it was either broken and remade or else greatly altered."

What people are saying

Review: The Great Plains

User Review  - Fredrick - Goodreads

Webb writes about the Great plains in the center of North America. Somewhat wordy and dull.

Contents

• CHAPTER PAGE: 3
• The Physical Basis of the Great Plains Environment: 10
• The Plains Indians: 47
• The Spanish Approach to the Great Plains: 85
• The American Approach to the Great Plains: 140
• The Great Plains block the Expansion of the South: 184
• CHAPTER PAGE: 205
• The Spread of the Kingdom: 216
• The Evolution of the Range and Ranch Cattle Industry: 227
• The Ways of Life on the Cattle Range: 244
• the Roundup: 255
• Transportation and Fencing: 270
• The Search for Water in the Great Plains: 319
• New Laws for Land and Water: 385
• The Literature of the Great Plains and about: 453
• CHAPTER PACE: 485
• Why is the West considered Spectacular and Romantic?: 491
• Why is the West politically Radical?: 502
• INDEX: 517

About the author

One of the unquestionably major historians of the American West, Walter Prescott Webb taught at London University, Oxford, and the University of Texas. He was the author of a number of highly provocative books, including The Great Frontier and this, his most famous study, The Great Plains.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Great Plains; Volume 766 of A Bison book
• Author: Walter Prescott Webb
• Edition: illustrated, reprint, revised
• Publisher: U of Nebraska Press, 1959
• ISBN: 0803297025, 9780803297029
• Length: 525 pages
• Subjects: History / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877); History / United States / General; History / United States / State & Local / General