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:
"A big and haunting history stuffed with big animals and big ideas that reveals the fragility and resilience of the Great Plains ecosystem over the past 10,000 years." --Karl Jacoby, author of Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation
"American Serengeti is Dan Flores's love song to the Great Plains, with each verse a fond embrace of one of its own--grizzlies and bison, pronghorns and coyotes. Beautifully written, it strikes just the right note for those of us drawn to this magnificent part of America. For those yet to know it, this book is a loving invitation to come and see."--Elliott West, author of The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado
"A highly personal book reflecting the vast knowledge of a leading cultural and environmental historian."--David Dary, author of The Buffalo Book and True Tales of the Prairies and Plains
"Dan Flores has written an engaging and provocative account of ecological change in the Great Plains by tracing the interaction of the large animals and humans in this grassland during the past 13,000 years. This is a book worth reading by anyone interested in the history of the American West."--R. Douglas Hurt, Head Fellow of the Agricultural History Society, Associate Fellow of the Center for Great Plains Studies
"As sweeping and expansive as the Great Plains themselves, Dan Flores's American Serengeti is 'Big History' at its best. Personal, passionate, and scholarly, his essays on pronghorns, coyotes, horses, grizzly bears, bison, and wolves give these ancient, durable animals their historical due."--Frank Van Nuys, author of Varmints and Victims: Predator Control in the American West