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

This is a marvelous book. I've read a fair number of books on this subject, and One Vast Winter Count is by a considerable margin the best and most comprehensive I've encountered, and one of the most readable. Prof. Calloway knows as much about the history of the indigenous West as anyone out there, and writes clearly and well. He is fair to all sides and points out when the historical record is unclear and when experts disagree. I read the book when it first came out. Just now I reread it and liked it so much the second time around I thought I would review it here. I was surprised to find a previous reviewer complaining that the book fails to define terms when they are first introduced. I guess this is true, but it's way less common than he says. The reviewer asks, "And what is an Algonquin?" I just looked at the book to find out how the author used the term. Contrary to what seems to be implied by the review, Calloway defines how he uses the word in "a note on terminology" at the beginning of the book and then defines the location of the people on p. 56 (hardback edition), which is where the term is used, I think, for the first time. Similarly, it is true that Calloway doesn't define "potlatch" in its full complexity, but the context (pp. 408-412) makes it pretty clear this is a native festival/ceremony/party where people give away lots of stuff to earn status points. I wish, like that reviewer, that the book had more maps. I also wish the index were more complete. Maybe the subtitle should have been changed to emphasize that this history focuses on the area between the Mississippi and the Rockies, with excursions to the Pacific Coast. But this book is not likely to be surpassed as a history of the American West before 1800 for a long time.

One Vast Winter Count is an impressive effort that possesses a scope both expansive and easily traced. Typically, one is presented French, British, and Spanish regional influence upon local indigenous populations. Calloway provides this, but also discusses the impact of each regional upheaval on the whole. One sees how the Iroquois could affect the Comanche and the Frenchman rattle the Don. Equally refreshing is Calloway's impartiality. He is no one's apologist. His narrative is matter-of-fact and free of any apparent agenda. The book's subtitle is a bit of a misnomer as Calloway expounds quite frequently upon peoples and events substantially east of the Mississipi. But, no matter, for this serves to complete a remarkable story. Occasionally dry, but fundamentally entertaining, One Vast Winter Count is a comprehensive survey deserving the attention of anyone interested in the Native American story. I received an education worth the price of admission. 4+ stars for a job well done.

This is an excellent survey of the history of the American West up to about 1800. For several good reasons, Calloway construes the American West as including much of Canada, the Old West of the early 19th and late 18th centuries - the trans-appalachian areas, and northern Mexico. Calloway begins with a nice precis of prehistory and covers major phases of North American native cultures such as the Missippian societies and events such as the spread of maize agriculture. Since much of the historical record per se comes from the accounts of early European explorers and settlers, the majority of the book is an excellent history of the interactions of native cultures with European invaders and the resulting effects on native societies. Calloway devotes ample space not only to oft discussed topics like the Seven Years War but also to excellent coverage of the Spanish and French Empires in North America, the coming of the horse, and the impact of European based trade networks. The emphasis throughout is the life and history of native societies. The quality of writing is excellent and the bibliography and footnotes are first rate.

Part of the University of Nebraska Press "History of the American West" series, One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West Before Lewis And Clark by Colin Calloway is not just another casual or coffee table treatment, but a weighty and in-depth examination of the Native American west before Lewis and Clark, highly recommended for college-level holdings and the personal reading lists of Native American History students and dedicated American West history buffs. Over 600 pages traces the histories of the Native American peoples of the west from their arrival thousands of years ago to the early years of the 19th century. The focus on evolving Native politics and interactions with various cultures and the new look blending ethnohistory and frontier history makes One Vast Winter Count a unique and strongly recommended presentation.

Colin Calloway has written an impressive debut volume for the University of Nebraska Press' History of the American West series. It weaves the latest archeological discoveries together with Native American oral history into cotemporary European accounts to produce a panoramic overview of 15,000 years of human existence is western America. His narrative ends at the point where coventional school textbooks begin -- with Lewis and Clark. This book has expanded my understanding by showing me that "The West is not a land of empty spaces with a short history..." Calloway wants us to see western history as a "long and unbroken continuum" that stretches backward in a vast spiral of years and forward beyond our own lifetimes.Most of us have a static view of Native American culture in the West; a 19th century snapshot with tribal characteristics and territories frozen in place. Calloway gives the reader a motion picture full of swirling migrations and altered identitites -- the result of altered climate, technology, as well as of European intervention. He integrates important events in native history into the timeline of world history in a way I have not previously encountered. As the Revolutionary War raged east of the Appalachians, a great smallpox epidemic that reduced native populations by 50-75% was raging to the west. The land Lewis and Clark explored was far emptier than it had been just a generation earlier.The diffusion of corn-growing into cooler regions of North America, starting in the sixth century C.E. initiated a revolution in Native American life. At the time the Normans invaded England, the Cahokias were building monumental earthworks and plazas amid fields of corn at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi. It was probably the largest city North America had seen until New York surpassed it at the end of the 18th Century. The Cohokias, like the Anasazi of the Southwest, had vanished before Lewis and Clark pushed west. The arrival of the horse on the plains in the 16th century coicided with climatic changes that expanded buffalo populations. Some native groups that had adopted the agrarian life forsook their cornfields, moved out onto the plains, and morphed into nomadic warrior cultures. The Sioux, Apaches, and Cheyenne were farmers before they were buffalo hunters.Although ONE VAST WINTER COUNT is unapologetically academic, it is well written and very readable. Without interrupting the narrative flow, Calloway identifies his sources and earmarks points of scholarly disagreement. The book devotes less space to native cultures of the Pacific coast than to others. Calloway's explanation is that he had to rely heavily on the record created by Europeans (who came later to that region). He says he chose to make his primary focus "centers of action and interaction". He ends the book by pointing to the depopulation of the rural West, the exhaustion of water resources, and the return of the buffalo as signs that the endless