| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Dan Flores. The Natural West: Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. 2001. Pp. x, 285. $29.95.

Dan Flores's ten chapters, which comprise his treatment of North America's Rocky Mountains and Great Plains, reflect twenty years of thinking about the land, its natural history, and its human inhabitants from Texas, where he studied, to Montana, where he resides, and beyond. It is mostly a revised version of previously published material and, therefore, is more a series of meditative essays than a formal analysis of the environmental history of his region. 1

Flores opens by asking the reader to consider the play of light, slope, aridity, and other biophysical features, including native animals, which lend both character and identity to the natural West. These elements have all influenced human settlement—productive enterprises—which can be documented and followed by the environmental historian. The author's purview lies deeper. Flores explores interstices of the human-land debate, how we view our past roles and responsibilities in imposing changes on preexisting habitats. He discusses the role of religion, the range of unconscious attitudes and prejudices about living on the land, and refers to the subsistence strategies in so-called Indian America. Native Americans faced vagaries of drought, competed for territory, and wore down a resource base rather than living in stasis, he concludes. . . .

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