Series foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. The emergence of grassland relationships pre-1500 CE -- The arrival of the immigrants -- What is a grass? -- The Pleistocene scene -- Climatic changes -- Archaic to Anasazi -- Plains woodland and plains village cultures -- On the eve of European contact -- References -- 2. The unraveling of the wild grasslands -- Animal distributions, grassland patterns, and soil types -- Little Ice Age -- Human population and subsistence patterns -- Caddo, Jumano, Apache, and Pueblo exchanges and trade patterns -- Arrival of European diseases -- Contact and consequences -- The rise of the Comanche Empire -- New arrivals and ways of ecological adaptation -- Enter the Cheyennes, Arapahos, and Sioux -- The memes of trade and culture -- Collapse of the grassland biome -- The beginnings of the domesticated grassland -- The bridge between the wild and domestic grasslands -- References --
3. The urbanized and domesticated grasslands -- The urban eclipse of the agricultural economy -- Euro-American market culture values and land-grant colleges -- Market culture values and commodification -- Farming systems -- Domestic grasses -- The irrigation crusade -- Irrigation crusade -- Irrigation court cases -- Enter federal reclamation -- Bonanza farms -- Open-range ranching -- War and the grasslands -- The Dust Bowl -- The New Deal and World War II -- References -- 4. The most endangered ecosystem on earth -- Artistic portrayals of the grasslands -- Grassland park systems -- Urbanized grasslands -- Contemporary grassland hydrology -- Changes in farming and rural demographics -- Environmental problems associated with modern agriculture -- Traditional conservation in the grasslands -- Alternative agriculture -- Environmentalism in the grasslands -- A buffalo commons in the making? -- Future directions -- References --
5. Case studies -- Case study : State making and unmaking (and making it back at all) : following Zebulon Pike across the Plains in 1806 -- A young nation and a young soldier facing West -- Making it in the grasslands -- A desert no more -- References -- Case study : Wetlands of the American Grasslands -- Wetland hydrology -- Wetland flora and fauna -- Humans and plains wetlands -- References -- Case study : John Wesley Powell and the Rocky Mountain West -- Powell's life -- Geology of the Rocky Mountains -- Learning the geography of the Rocky Mountains -- Pre-contact mountain biomes -- Fur companies, Indian peoples, and miners -- Forests and parks -- The West's reservoirs -- The urbanized mountains -- The West's playground or the nation's energy reserve? -- Powell's unrealized dream -- References -- Documents -- Important people, events, and concepts -- Chronology -- Selected annotated bibliography -- Index
