Book Review

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 215 words from this article are provided below; about 321 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

Book Review | The Journal of American History, 86.1 | The History Cooperative

The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, & the Rush to Colorado. By Elliott West. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998. xxiv, 422 pp. $34.95, isbn 0-7006-0891-5.)

Many books have been written about the Colorado gold rush. This one is different. It is the layered story of the peopling of the Plains and the front range of the Rocky Mountains. It is a vast and complex story that should be fascinating and instructive to historians. The first part of the book is devoted to Native American peopling of the region. Professor Elliott West reveals the ingenuity of these Americans as they adapt to the environment in numerous ways, including the revolution in their ways brought by the acquisition of the horse. Here he points out that the horse was not only a new force for mobility, but a vastly greater source of energy that related differently to the environment, which is always an important factor in West's story. Native Americans do not disappear from the story and continue as a factor down through the Indian wars of Kansas and Nebraska before and after the Civil War, as on a true frontier, they co-mingle in various ways with the whites. And always the Native Americans are seen as real people, not sociological stereotypes. . . .

There are about 321 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.