| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.2

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Cities on the Plains: The Evolution of Urban Kansas. By James R. Shortridge. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. xiv, 480 pp. $45.00, ISBN 0-7006-1312-9.)

James R. Shortridge, by weaving geographic theory into an analytic narrative to tell the fascinating story of the urban development of Kansas, sets a new standard for regional urban history. At its core lies a revised version of the mercantile model of regional urbanization that leads to somewhat surprising conclusions about the fate of urban development on the Great Plains. While mercantile activity and transport patterns do explain much of the history of urban development, the author argues that the location of resources, the shifting economics of industry and services, interactions with world markets, and political decisions that determined the location and development of public institutions fill in the complex picture.

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