Home on the Range: A Century on the High Plains - Softcover

Dickenson, James R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0700607587 ISBN 13: 9780700607587

Verlag: University Press of Kansas, 1996

Inhaltsangabe

Book by Dickenson James R

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Críticas:

"Every once in a while an authentic jewel of a book comes along that makes me want to shout to the world: Read this! You'll love it! I hereby so shout that about Home on the Range. It is a beautifully written story of a people and a place that is really about us all. It is a jewel that should be treasured and shared." Jim Lehrer, The MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour"This is not history from the bottom up, but from the inside out life on the High Plains experienced viscerally, then reflected on shrewdly; a rare combination of emotion and analysis. He gives us a whole way of life simultaneously being lived and being lost." Garry Wills, author of Lincoln at Gettysburg "A thoroughly readable story of the Dickenson family and the part of the country from which they come, a land of dust storms, ghost towns, and good country people. I was surprised at book s end by the degree to which I had been touched by the tale of how McDonald continues to hold out against the elements and the odds. Anyone who has spent time in a small town will warm to this book. Anyone in the business of passing laws that affect the daily life of small towns ought to read it with special care." Washington Post Book World"Dickenson s story is something of a rural everyman s tale. . . . It records the passage of the nation from agrarian innocence to international player and shows how these changes affected the once small but prosperous farming community. His warm, full prose is as engaging and inviting as the people about whom he writes and clearly cherishes." Library Journal "Dickenson interviewed individuals from all walks of life farmers, ranchers, laborers, merchants, high school athletes, bankers, lawyers, soldiers, politicians, homemakers, newspaper publishers, preachers, teachers, and writers to illustrate the larger historical landscapes he paints. Readers will be inspired by the affection he holds for the land and people of the plains, and they will appreciate the problems of surviving there." Wichita Eagle "Dickenson s book is a mixture of fond memories and factual nuggets that prove Kansas is an appealing, rather remarkable place by any standard. It is of course a microcosm of America, the bittersweet story of a journey to the stars and its many detours and visits to the ditch." Kansas City Star

Reseña del editor:

Home on the Range chronicles the epic drama of the settling and development of the High plains - a lyrical, nostalgic look at our rural past and its endangered future. The High Plains of the United States, where the buffalo once roamed, are being abandoned by many who once lived there, and, as a result, a culture and a way of life are being lost. Silhouetted against the violent dust storms and blizzards that often boil across the vast horizon, grain elevators, water towers, church steeples, and stark, tiny towns look as though they could be swallowed up without a trace. But, James R. Dickenson points out, the poignant irony is that these farms and towns are disappearing not through the ferocity of Mother Nature but due to the progression of technology and changes in life-styles. The railroad, the six-shooter, and barbed wire made the settlement and growth of this region possible, but technological advancements such as irrigation and computerized equipment are having a different effect. Home on the Range examines the past hundred years of life on the High Plains through the prism of the author's own hometown. The history of McDonald, Kansas (population now 200), is the story of hundreds of other Western towns. It's a moving and exciting portrait - including shootouts over land rights, lynchings, the chicanery of land agents, the adventures of bootleggers (Kansas was a dry state until 1948) - but also one of faith and community, with life revolving around the local school and church and the cycle of the harvest. The High Plains residents of today, Dickenson reminds us, are in the same position as their great-grandparents - on the verge of a great change. The question is whether the peopleof this area, who are on a social and economic rather than a physical frontier, can meet the challenge and create a viable society as their forbears did a century ago when they pioneered the vast untracked area once known as the Great American Desert.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: University Press of Kansas
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0700607587
• ISBN 13: 9780700607587
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304