One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West Before Lewis and Clark (review)

When evaluating the work of their colleagues, historians are typically and appropriately reluctant to throw around adjectives like "monumental," "staggering," and "magisterial." Certain efforts, on the other hand, clearly warrant the use of that kind of extravagant language. One such example is Colin Calloway's One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West Before Lewis and Clark. Already one of the most well-reviewed titles in recent years, Calloway's work is clearly deserving of the acclaim and the multiple awards it has received. Taking on the prodigious task of surveying some 15,000 years of the history of aboriginal peoples in the trans-Appalachian West, Calloway paints on a vast canvas indeed. Invoking archaeological, anthropological, ethnographical, biological, botanical, military, and historical evidence, and utilizing a rich array of documentary and oral sources, Calloway presents an interdisciplinary synthesis that is as academically important as it is remarkably readable. The result is "Big History" in its most compelling and attractive form.

Calloway organizes his analysis into three broad chronological and thematic sections. In Part One, he begins with an overview of the varying perspectives and controversies regarding the earliest human origins in North America and advances the story to the appearance of the Spanish conquistadors around 1500. Along the way, he places special emphasis on the spread of corn cultivation as a key catalytic force in the transition from nomadic lifestyles to sedentary agriculturalism. Part Two addresses the Spanish appearance in the early sixteenth century and includes graphically poignant accounts of the conflicts that ensued up until about 1700. Part Three begins with the familiar but still-intriguing story of the reintroduction of the horse onto the American Plains, and the powerfully transformative effect of that phenomenon on the lives and fates of the Plains Indian nations. Calloway then roams eastward once again, addressing the complex imperial dynamics that brought on the fighting of the Seven Years' War and its dramatic impact on the Indian nations of the Ohio and Mississippi River watersheds. He then closes with a particularly effective epilogue that reminds the reader that the history of the American West is neither as short nor as "exceptional" as some may wish to believe.

Calloway's work may also be read as an admirably effective effort to bridge the lingering remnants of the historiographical gap between traditional Turnerian frontier history and the "New Western History." There is, for example, ample evidence of the frontier "process" here, as white male Euroamericans transform, and are transformed by, their encounter with the existing inhabitants of the West. Yet Calloway focuses—first, foremost, and always—on Native perspectives and voices, and the "indigenous initiatives" that lie at the core of his main storylines. In the familiar vernacular of current literature, Calloway's Native Americans are most definitely "actors" themselves—not merely the "acted upon."

As the first of a planned six-volume series on the History of the American West from the University of Nebraska Press, Calloway's work sets a high standard for the remainder of the series. Balanced in its presentation, subtly nuanced in its interpretations, and gracefully accessible in its style, One Vast Winter Count is deserving of an appreciative audience both inside and outside the academy.