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90 Western American Literature of ecology, long before any of these words was in common use or the concepts they stand for generally understood. This was the century during which fundamental beliefs about the origin of the earth and man’s place in it were shattered . . . when the approach to nature shifted from the romantic and moral to the scientific; when exploitation gradually began to yield to some thought for the future. Behind news words such as “conservation” and “environmental protection” loom preparatory treatises such as Wake-Robin; The Mountains of Cali­ fornia; Report on the Exploration of the Colorado River of the West, 1875; The Physical Geography of the Grand Canyon District; Hunting Trips of a Ranchman; Our Vanishing Wildlife, Key to North American Birds; The Land of Little Rain; The Desert Year; Wildlife on the Rockies; Behold Our Land; Our Plundered Planet; Sand County Almanac; The Outermost House; The American Seasons. As Brooks points out, the response to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was instantaneous, yet its author was aware of the debt her own work owed to all that had been published during the preceding century, that had led readers like herself to appreciate “the beauty of the living world I was trying to save.” These nature writers reveal the persuasive power of the pen. “It is obvious,” says Brooks, “that we fight to preserve what we have come to love and understand.’’ CORALTE BEYERS, Utah State University An Annotated Bibliography of American Indian and Eskimo Autobiogra­ phies. By H. David Brumble III. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 1981. 177 pages, $10.95.) Scholars and general readers are being offered an increasing variety of bibliographies on American Indian topics. Some are very specialized and a few are indispensable, such as Francis Paul Prucha’s A Bibliographical Guide to the History of Indian-White Relations in the United States (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1977, available in paperback). II. David Brumble III has created a marvelous bibliography that appears by its title to be highly specialized but which, nonetheless, deserves to be placed in personal and professional libraries near Prucha’s comprehensive volume. Brumble has 577 entries. Only five refer to unpublished sources. The rest range in printed editions from the eighteenth century to the present. As he explains in his introduction, “Here are mothers, fathers, warriors, G.I.’s, preachers, pilots, pitchers, authors, artists, shamans, doctors, hunters, Peyotists , Methodists, visionaries, spiritualists, politicians, and at least one canni­ bal (no. 116) Reviews 91 Nearly every entry is accompanied by an account of how the auto­ biography was created as well as a few general remarks about the contents. Brumble is particularly aware of the influence of white collaborators. In the case of some well-known books, such as Black Elk Speaks, Brumble has composed more extensive remarks that are especially helpful to his readers. This reference work has been thoughtfully composed and is worth read­ ing in its entirety because it is an impressive survey of one important, although occasionally misleading, form of American Indian self-expression. H. David Brumble III deserves congratulations for his efforts. CLYDE A. MILNER II Utah State University Catch the Wind. By James Grady. (New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, 1980.) The manifold changes that are being devised under the term “energy development” are complicated in human as well as environmental contexts. The mountains themselves will stand, outlines a bit muffled by the rising dust of roads and mines, but the human topography of the West — the cowboy and rancher and small town mix of arrogance and innocence — will be blurred beyond recognition. The economics and demographics of coal and oil exploitation are imposing a kind of dollar-totalitarianism that does not blend with local cultures and “barely gettin’ by.” This novel charts the defeat of ranchers in southeastern Montana who want little but to keep their land and preserve their way of life. The coal seam beneath their ranches promises a boom for the valley and the ranch community finds itself pressured not only by speculators and corporate front-men, but ironically by the townspeople and businessmen who discover a sudden allegiance to progress means more than the affinities of several...

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