| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 33.3

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| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 33.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Natural West: Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. By Dan Flores. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001. x + 285 pp. Illustrations, maps, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95.)

In The Natural West, Dan Flores combines eight previously published and two unpublished essays in an extended meditation on the strengths, weaknesses, and possibilities that the field of environmental history has brought to our understanding of two western subregions, the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains. The essays range in topic from exploration to religion, in time from prehistoric eras to the late twentieth century, and in focus from specific events and issues to academic historiography. As a whole, the book argues that scholars of the western environment must shift their postmodern, culture-centered approach to human interactions with the environment, and embrace two fundamental ideas: human nature and bioregionalism. The Natural West is, thus, at heart a critique of western environmental history, and will be most appreciated by scholars and graduate students in search of a concise, thoughtful, balanced, highly readable, and well-written presentation of core debates within the field over nature, culture, biological determinism, ecological restoration, and the definition of the West itself. Some of the essays, however, would also be appropriate for undergraduate readers. Chapters two and three in particular, "The Ecology of the Red River in 1806" and "Bison Ecology," offer elegant, concise essays on just how thoroughly Native peoples shaped pre-contact North America. . . .

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