Bison and People on the North American Great Plains: A Deep Environmental History ed. by Geoff Cunfer and Bill Waiser (review)

FOR OVER A CENTURY, the consensus viewpoint about the destruction of the North American bison was that European Americans held sole responsibility for this environmental tragedy. However, in the early 1990s, scholarship by Dan Flores and James Sherow dramatically altered Great Plains history by revealing a more complex narrative that included Indigenous people as active participants in the decline of the bison. Over the next three decades, many other scholars entered into this conversation demonstrating that the collapse of the North American bison had a deeply complex human and ecological history, including Pekka Hämäläinen, William Dobak, Elliott West, Andrew Isenberg, and Shepherd Krech III, to name a few. The editors of Bison and People on the North American Great Plains, Geoff Cunfer and Bill Waiser, organized this book to stretch the geographic boundaries of the current scholarly conversation into the Great Plains of Canada and engage with interdisciplinary fields such as environmental history, archaeology, paleontology, and Indigenous studies to answer broader questions about the bison and their destruction at the end of the nineteenth century.

This collection of essays successfully examines the longue durée of the bison of the North American Great Plains, providing a window into the ever-changing ecosystems and climate, the influence of humans, and the introduction of invasive species such as the horse. One of the many strengths of this book is the ability of these essays to extend the temporal scope of bison history well beyond the arrival of the Paleo-Indian to the continent and to expand the geographic confines of former studies of bison history into the northern Great Plains. The book is divided into four distinct sections. The first section consists of two historiographic essays, and the final three sections are organized into chronologically similar topics. Some of the more nuanced examinations of bison history include chapters entitled "The Bison's View of Landscape and the Paleoenvironment," "A Hunter's Quest for Fat Bison," and "A Tanner's View of the Bison Hunt." These chapters approach a specific topic through a focused lens such as a hide tanner's viewpoint to provide a unique perspective on bison history.

One of the stronger chapters of Bison and People considers the perspective of the Lakota view of Pté Oyáte (Buffalo Nation). Anthropologist David Posthumus argues that the "bison was a fundamental Lakota social, cultural, and religious symbol" and was the "lifeblood of the people" (280). The Lakota lived in a close material and spiritual kinship with the bison, and they depended upon the animal for survival, as well as emotional tone. The traumatic decline of the bison and the dawn of reservation life occurred simultaneously for the Lakota at the end of the nineteenth century, but the bison continued to influence their worldview. The bison was and is a "model for Lakota society," Posthumus argues, that taught "individuals how they should act so that the people and generations might live on" (301). According to Posthumus, the connection between the Lakota and bison did not diminish over time but only grew stronger.

Bison and People on the North American Great Plains does an excellent job expanding upon the historical and geographical scope of existing scholarship on bison history and offers many well-researched essays in a cohesive book. Bison and People would be a good addition to a graduate course syllabus on Indigenous studies and environmental history, and many of the essays could be utilized in an undergraduate course. Outside the many strengths of Bison and People, this book does not significantly challenge the conversation about the decline of the bison from the arguments proposed in the early 1990s by Flores and Sherow and only tangentially pushes the boundaries of other scholars in the field. The conclusion remains the same, that bison lived in a complex ecosystem, humans tremendously affected this ecosystem, and the market...