One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West before Lewis and Clark

Colin Calloway begins this book with a look at societies that were once thriving communities but are now nothing more than abandoned and often overlooked sites. He ends his book by warning that our communities could end in the same way if we do not learn from the history of past peoples. In between these pages, the author utilizes vast amounts of sources to tell the stories of the Indians who lived and died in the American West. He shows that the American West was constantly changing. There were battles between Indian tribes, with the Spanish, the French, the English, and the Americans, who all set out in one way or another to control the Indians through religion, trade, promises, and land use. He shows that they were not always one show more sided battles and that the Indians were often as cunning and brave as any of these other groups. They put up a good fight, but in the end, they were overcome by disease and the overwhelming number of people moving into their lands. Calloway shows how the west has always been in a constant state of change and that change is still occurring today. There is so much good information in this book. Calloway gathered sources from many people, and shows as many angles to the stories as he can. Unfortunately, most of history is written by the winners, and the Indians in most cases did not win. Still, he includes numerous citations from the Indian peoples. This book is nothing like what we are taught in our watered down American History books, and it is somewhat refreshing to get a better idea of what really happened in the American West. show less

Very detailed - should be required reading in Native American history

The history of Native Americans in the West until the age of Lewis and Clark.