Description: The story of what happened to six major species of the Great Plains--pronhorn antelope, gray wolves, bison, coyotes, wild horses, and grizzly bears--in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the prospects for recovering North America's "Serengeti" in our time by re-creating a great Plains wilderness on a Yellowstone-sized scale. The book is thus the story of plains slaughterhouse history in the 19th century and large-scale conservation hopes for the 21st.
Brief description: Dan Flores is A. B. Hammond Professor Emeritus at the University of Montana, Missoula. His many books include The Natural West: Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains and Horizontal Yellow: Nature and History in the Near Southwest.
Review Quotes:
"American Serengeti is another of Dan Flores's signature examinations of environmental and cultural history."--Pacific Historical Review
"This book is well researched, topical, and beautifully written."--Journal of American History
"Dan Flores makes an important contribution to our knowledge about the history of the Great Plains. It is big history that brings the depth of time to the present and helps us see the Great Plains and its large animals in an immediacy that heretofore has been overlooked. . . . This is an insightful, engaging, beautifully written story about the large animals that once lived abundantly in the Great Plains. Flores is a veteran historian who can turn a skillful phrase with great wit. The result is a cogently argued, perceptive history. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the Great Plains."--Annals of Wyoming
"The strongest chapters. . . present comprehensive syntheses of existing scholarship, while offering fresh insights and understandings developed during Flores' lifetime of study and reflection as well as his personal immersion in the region, including observations of surveyed animals."--Nebraska History
"In a way both subtle and important, Flores offers an answer to the recent flurry of interest in the Anthropocene, that unofficial recent period of geological and climate history influence by human activity. American Serengeti reveals the significance of placing human contributions and disruptions into a longer historical narrative."--Western Historical Quarterly
"An excellent work of environmental history."--Chronicles of Oklahoma
"Flores provides a sharpened focus with a richly detailed examination of six large species common in the 1840s. His writing is never dull and frequently bites with wit."--Mountain Town News
"A passionate elegy to the American Great Plains and their former fauna. Historian Dan Flores draws deeply from his professional expertise and life as a denizen of this eco-region to create a poetic book that functions as both conservation manifesto and memoir. Writing for a general audience, the author masterfully renders an evocative portrait to elucidate all that has been lost--vast herds of free-ranging antelope and bison, with attendant predators such as wolves, coyotes, and grizzly bears."--Choice
"A fascinating and approachable book that is suitable for students, scholars and nonacademic audiences who enjoy reading about the intersections between natural history and the environmental history of the American West."--H-Net Reviews