Book ID: CBB340804889

American Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains (2017)

unapi

Flores, Dan L. (Author)


University Press of Kansas


Publication Date: 2017
Physical Details: 222
Language: English

Winner of the Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize America's Great Plains once possessed one of the grandest wildlife spectacles of the world, equaled only by such places as the Serengeti, the Masai Mara, or the veld of South Africa. Pronghorn antelope, gray wolves, bison, coyotes, wild horses, and grizzly bears: less than two hundred years ago these creatures existed in such abundance that John James Audubon was moved to write, "it is impossible to describe or even conceive the vast multitudes of these animals."In a work that is at once a lyrical evocation of that lost splendor and a detailed natural history of these charismatic species of the historic Great Plains, veteran naturalist and outdoorsman Dan Flores draws a vivid portrait of each of these animals in their glory--and tells the harrowing story of what happened to them at the hands of market hunters and ranchers and ultimately a federal killing program in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Great Plains with its wildlife intact dazzled Americans and Europeans alike, prompting numerous literary tributes. American Serengeti takes its place alongside these celebratory works, showing us the grazers and predators of the plains against the vast opalescent distances, the blue mountains shimmering on the horizon, the great rippling tracts of yellowed grasslands. Far from the empty "flyover country" of recent times, this landscape is alive with a complex ecology at least 20,000 years old--a continental patrimony whose wonders may not be entirely lost, as recent efforts hold out hope of partial restoration of these historic species.Written by an author who has done breakthrough work on the histories of several of these animals--including bison, wild horses, and coyotes--American Serengeti is as rigorous in its research as it is intimate in its sense of wonder--the most deeply informed, closely observed view we have of the Great Plains' wild heritage.

...More
Reviewed By

Review Travis B. Roy (July 2017) Review of "American Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains". Environmental History (pp. 543-545). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB340804889/

Similar Citations

Chapter Smith, Harvey R.; Clark, Tim W.; (2003)
Wild Animals in Connecticut's Changing Landscape (/isis/citation/CBB000774014/)

Book Nyhart, Lynn K.; (2009)
Modern Nature: The Rise of the Biological Perspective in Germany (/isis/citation/CBB000952146/)

Article John H., Jr. White; (Fall/Winter 2009)
Hunting buffalo from the train (/isis/citation/CBB396420850/)

Book Michael D. Wise; (2016)
Producing Predators: Wolves, Work, and Conquest in the Northern Rockies (/isis/citation/CBB178514363/)

Book Coates, Peter; (2006)
American Perceptions of Immigrant and Invasive Species: Strangers on the Land (/isis/citation/CBB000773260/)

Book Lannoo, Michael J.; (2010)
Leopold's Shack and Ricketts's Lab: The Emergence of Environmentalism (/isis/citation/CBB001022399/)

Book Skelly, David K.; Post, David M.; Smith, Melinda D.; (2010)
The Art of Ecology: Writings of G. Evelyn Hutchinson (/isis/citation/CBB001023126/)

Book Schneider, Richard J.; (2000)
Thoreau's sense of place: Essays in American environmental writing (/isis/citation/CBB000110590/)

Book Croker, Robert A.; (2001)
Stephen Forbes and the Rise of American Ecology (/isis/citation/CBB000101011/)

Book Scharff, Virginia; (2003)
Seeing Nature through Gender (/isis/citation/CBB000641341/)

Book Coggins, Chris; (2003)
The Tiger and the Pangolin: Nature, Culture, and Conservation in China (/isis/citation/CBB000302286/)

Book Vetter, Jeremy; (2010)
Knowing Global Environments: New Historical Perspectives in the Field Sciences (/isis/citation/CBB001021712/)

Article Philippe Huneman; (2019)
How the Modern Synthesis Came to Ecology (/isis/citation/CBB692195212/)

Book Anker, Peder; (2001)
Imperial Ecology: Environmental Order in the British Empire, 1895-1945 (/isis/citation/CBB000102829/)

Book Dan Flores; (2016)
Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History (/isis/citation/CBB468899431/)

Authors & Contributors
Rockel, Stephen J.
Bathsheba Demuth
Wise, Michael
White, John H., Jr.
Vetter, Jeremy
Smith, Melinda D.
Concepts
Ecology
Natural history
Hunting; trapping
Animal ecology
Environmental sciences
Biology
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
20th century, early
18th century
Places
United States
Canada
Great Plains (North America)
Great Britain
Arctic regions
Western states (U.S.)
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment