Forging British Strategy in the Age of the French Revolution, 1783-1797
In February 1793, in the wake of the War of American Independence and one year after British prime minister William Pitt the Younger had predicted fifteen years of peace, the National Convention of Revolutionary France declared war on Great Britain and the Netherlands. France thus initiated nearly a quarter century of armed conflict with Britain. ......
For the Seneca Iroquois Indians, song is a crucial means of renewing both medicine and heritage. Two or three times a year, the Little Water Medicine Society of western New York meets to renew the potency of its medicine bundles through singing. These bundles have been inherited from eighteenth century Iroquois war parties, handed down from ......
A Biography of Harry Love, Leader of the California Rangers Who TrackedDown Joaquin Murrieta
Like some mysterious Paladin, Harry Love seemed to suddenly appear on the California landscape at a time when he was particularly needed. As captain of the California Rangers, Love pursued Joaquin Murrieta and his bandits, and the outlaw was captured and killed. Then, his job done, he again faded into obscurity. Where did he come from? What was ......
The damming of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park is widely seen as a watershed event in American environmental history. Passionately opposed by naturalist John Muir and his ardent supporters, the massive undertaking succeeded largely through the efforts of John R. Freeman, one of the most important, influential, and politically adroit ......
Brasseur de Bourbourg's Travels through Central America and Mexico, 1854-1859
In two decades of traveling throughout Mexico, Central America, and Europe, French priest Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg (1814-1874) amassed hundreds of indigenous manuscripts and printed books, including grammars and vocabularies that brought to light languages and cultures little known at the time. Although his efforts yielded many of the ......
In The Mask Maker, Diane Glancy tells the story of Edith Lewis, a recently divorced mixed-blood American Indian, as she travels the state of Oklahoma teaching students the art and custom of mask-making. A complex, subtle tale about flesh-and-blood human beings, this enchanting novel shows how one woman copes with alienation, loss, and questions ......
When General Stephen Watts Kearny's Army of the West marched into Santa Fe, New Mexico, on August 18, 1846, Richard Smith Elliott, a young Missouri volunteer, was included in its ranks. In addition to Lieutenant Elliott's duties in the Laclede Rangers, he served as a regular correspondent to the St. Louis Reveille. An entertaining and educated ......
Each fall, millions of monarch butterflies migrate from Canada to Mexico. Their incredible journey-nearly 3,000 miles long-takes them through Oklahoma, Texas, and other US states, where butterfly devotees eagerly await their arrival. The monarch migration is a brilliant demonstration of nature's ingenuity, but the delicate creatures face many ......
Biographical sketches of the participants by scholars of the subjects and with introductions by the editor
Mountain Men were the principal figures of the fur trade era, one of the most interesting, dramatic, and truly significant phases of the history of the American trans-Mississippi West during the first half of the 19th Century. These men were of all types-some were fugitives from law and civilization, others were the best in rugged manhood; some ......