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The Future of the Southern Plains
By Edited by Sherry L. Smith
In The Future of the Southern Plains, scholars bring the region to the forefront by asking important questions about its past and suggesting prospects for its future. The contributors, some of them natives of the region, bring to their work a blend of scholarship and personal experience. They match intellectual sophistication with deep affection for a place defined primarily as western Texas, Oklahoma, and eastern New Mexico. Within this volume is a story about America, a story about limits, and a story about challenging those limits.
Seven historians, one geographer, and a paleoclimatologist contribute a wealth of observation, analysis, and commentary on the environmental characteristics and history of the Southern Plains. They address such themes as failing communities, scarce water, endangered species, and disappearing ways of life—and the possible results of these developments not only in the Southern Plains but elsewhere on the globe.
Based on presentations at a symposium sponsored by the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University, these essays treat the most important aspects of life on the Southern Plains today, from climate, politics, and religion to business and environmental renewal.
"The Future of the Southern Plains is an excellent collection of studies that are informative, provocative, and stimulating. Some enlighten the reader about critical matters: the management of ground water, for example. Others, such as the study of Republicanism in the Panhandle, will entertain. All in all, it’s a thoughtful and thorough enterprise."—Larry McMurtry, author of Lonesome Dove
"Smith provides a comprehensive view of the Southern Plains. I know of nothing quite like this book, both in the information it brings together and how it brings the past to bear on a twenty-first century." —Walter Nugent, author of Into the West: The Story of Its People
Sherry L. Smith is Professor of History and Associate Director of the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. She is the author of Reimagining Indians: Native Americans through Anglo Eyes, 1880—1940 and Sagebrush Soldier: Private William Earl Smith’s View of the Sioux War of 1876 (OU Press).
Contributors and topics include:
Sherry L. Smith: Introduction
Dan Flores: Environmental destruction and preservation
John Miller Morris: Corporations and family farms
Diana Davids Olien: Oil production
John Opie: Water management
Jeff Roche: Political history
Yolanda Romero: Political history
Elliott West: Exploration
Connie Woodhouse: Droughts
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