Great Western Indian Fights, by Potomac Corral of the Westerners (Bison Books, 1996).

The Potomac Corral produced a collection of essays entitled Great Western Indian Fights, which was published in hardcover by Doubleday and Company of New York in 1960. Members B. W. Allred, Jeff C. Dykes, Frank Goodwyn, and D. Harper Simms edited this work.

Among the battles covered are the Pierre's Hole fight, the battle of Bandera Pass, the battle of Pyramid Lake, the battle of Wood Lake, the Canyon de Chelly rout, the battles of Adobe Walls, the Fetterman, Hayfield, and Wagon Box fights, the fight at Beecher Island, the battle of the Washita, the battles of Massacre Canyon and Palo Duro Canyon, the battle of the Rosebud, the battle of the Little Bighorn, the Dull Knife massacre, and the final, tragic encounter at Wounded Knee. The essay on the Little Bighorn was written by member Robert M. Utley, a leading authority on the battle and biographer of its two most famous participants, George A. Custer and Sitting Bull. The collection was described in the New York Times Book Review as containing "Two dozen of the most celebrated and hair-raising Indian fights on record. Good, solid reading, and a whole peck of it."

Borderline Americans: Racial Division and Labor War in the Arizona Borderlands, by Katherine Benton-Cohen (Harvard University Press, 2009).

Book will be available in spring 2009.

Empowering the West: Electrical Politics Before FDR, by Jay L. Brigham (University Press of Kansas, 1998).

While electricity held considerable promise for residents of the American West throughout the 1920s, it did not come with the flip of a switch. That dream could not be realized until it was first determined who would manage the resources from which power was generated.

"This is an important book that will change the way environmental historians and western historians regard the role of electrical power in the development of the West." - Hal K. Rothman, editor of Environmental History

David J Brewer: The Life of a Supreme Court Justice, 1837-1910, by Michael J. Brodhead (Southern Illinois University Press, 1994).

This is the first biography of David J. Brewer, an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1889 to 1910. Prior to rising to the nation’s highest tribunal, Brewer served as a county probate judge, a state district judge, a Kansas State Supreme Court justice, and a federal circuit court judge. He was known not only for his long tenure on the Supreme Court but also for his numerous off-the-bench statements as an orator and writer.

Michael J. Brodhead contends that until recently historians have carelessly and inaccurately created a false image of Brewer, partly by citing a small sample of his opinions and public statements as representative of his alleged conservatism. They have also assumed that the disputable decisions of Brewer and his contemporaries were based on ideological predilections and that precedent and recognized legal principles played no role.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West Warriors: A Photographic History by Gertrude Kasebier, by Michelle Delaney (Collins, 2007).

For the first time ever, here is renowned photographer Gertrude Käsebier's haunting collection of photographs of Native American performers from Buffalo Bill's Wild West show at the turn of the century. One hundred years later, Käsebier's portraits remain significant visual records into the lives of these Sioux performers and their nation. Her striking photographs capture the strength and character of each individual, documenting the complexity of true warriors playing a staged version of themselves.

The Mapping of America, by Seymour I. Schwartz and Ralph E. Ehrenberg (Wellfleet Press, 2001)

The authors of this book have combined a rich collection of American maps, from the first tentative chartings of a new land to contemporary satellite photographs, tracking the development of the nation as it has been explored, its boundaries established, and its resources charted. Never before has a project of these dimensions been undertaken. Includes over 223 maps, 84 reproduced in full color.

See also a brief bio of Mac Greeley on the Texas Book Festival website.

The Two Thousand Yard Stare: Tom Lea's World War II, by Tom Lea, edited by Brendan "Mac" Greeley Jr. (Texas A&M University Press, 2008)

Few artists saw World War II from as many perspectives as El Paso artist and writer Tom Lea. Commissioned by "Life" magazine to paint the war as it was being experienced by U.S. and Allied troops.

In The Two Thousand Yard Stare, Brendan M. Greeley Jr. has collected virtually all of Tom Lea's firsthand written accounts of his assignments for "Life", including a previously unpublished diary and letters to fellow Texas writer J. Frank Dobie, along with Lea's powerful sketches and unforgettable paintings. Greeley places them in context, along with photographs and informative details on the people, places, and wartime events encountered by Tom Lea. Thoroughly documented and filled with telling illustrations, this book will leave a stunning impression on those interested in the realistic depiction of war, in both images and words. Also a must-read for students, scholars, and collectors of Tom Lea's work, The Two Thousand Yard Stare brilliantly captures the artistic skills and spirit of one of America's most compelling painters and writers.

Read more about author Jill Jones on her professional website....

Eiffel's Tower: And the World's Fair Where Buffalo Bill Beguiled Paris, the Artists Quarreled, and Thomas Edison Became a Count

When self-made millionaire and engineer Gustave Eiffel won a contest to erect a colossal tower as the spectacular centerpiece of the 1889 Exposition Universelle, Parisian tastemakers were outraged. They denounced Eiffel’s proposed thousand-foot tower as a “hideous” blot on their historic city, even as fearful residents brought lawsuits amid predictions of certain structural calamity. In Eiffel’s Tower, Jill Jonnes, author of the critically acclaimed Conquering Gotham, recounts the compelling history of the tower’s conception, building, and reception in Belle Epoque France.

But the Eiffel Tower is only part of this story, for the Paris Exposition itself was a milestone of emerging technology, late 19th century globalism, and an extraordinary flourishing of the arts and journalism. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, featuring famous sharpshooter Annie Oakley and a full retinue of Native Americans, enthralled Parisians, while Thomas Edison, come to promote his new talking phonograph in Europe, was feted as a genius; the painters Whistler, Gauguin, and van Gogh were exploring new frontiers in art, and James Gordon Bennett, Jr. of the Paris Herald was reinventing the news. At the fanciful exposition grounds, fairgoers crowded Asian and African shops and mock villages, fascinated by these first glimpses the newly global world of colonial empire and trade.

Eiffel’s Tower is a richly textured portrait of a visionary, of an architectural icon that became the glamorous symbol of Paris and French culture, and of an era at the dawn of modernity, reveling in the limitless promise of the future.

Indian White Relations: A Persistent Paradox, by Jane F. Smith and Robert Kvasnicka (Howard University Press, 1981)

This book is the published result of the United States National Archives Conference on Research in the History of Indian-White Relations. The conference highlighted the rich research potential of holdings in the National Archives

The papers and commentaries presented in this volume cover a wide range of research topics, methodologies and points of view. F. Paul Prucha's thought-provoking "Doing Indian History" is followed by sections on Indian assimilation in the nineteenth century, the role of the military, Indian reservation policy and twentieth century policy, most notably, the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Dammed Indians: The Pick-Sloan Plan and the Missouri River Sioux, 1944-1980, by Michael Lawson (paper, University of Oklahoma Press, 1994)

For anyone interested in the background, impact, and future of the Pick-Sloan Plan, you need look no further than Lawson's aptly titled "Dammed Indians". The tribes from Gavins Point Dam near Yankton, SD to Ft. Peck Dam in Montana have all been adversely affected with the damming of the Missouri River, a truth which Lawson documents with precision and skill. Originally a Ph.D. dissertation written in the history department at the University of New Mexico, Lawson is a fine example of some of the many outstanding American West historians who have come out of that institution.

To Serve the President: Continuity and Innovation in the White House Staff, by Bradley H. Patterson Jr., (Brookings Institution Press, 2008).

Come hell or high water, the American people will elect a new president in November 2008, and the following January will see a changeover in presidential administrations. One of the first challenges facing the new chief executive, and one of the most consequential, is to put his or her stamp on the personnel and day-to-day operations of the “new” White House. In this insightful and entertaining book, a veteran of several presidential administrations opens a window onto the closely guarded Oval Office turf. Nobody knows more about the duties, the difficulties, and the strategies of staffing and working in the White House than Brad Patterson.

With two enormously successful books about 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue already under his belt, Patterson was granted unprecedented access to George W. Bush’s key staff. In To Serve the President, he parlays his experience and access into the most authoritative and readable account yet of the operations, offices, and most important, the people of the complete White House team.

Spreading the Word: A History of Information in the California Gold Rush, by Richard T. Stillson(University of Nebraska Press, 2006).

Spreading the Word examines the ways in which easterners who traveled West during the California gold rush of 1849–51 obtained, assessed, and used information. At the beginning of the gold rush the scarcity of information about westward travel posed serious problems for potential gold seekers in the East. Though most knew the trip was dangerous and that proper preparation could mean the difference between life and death, few had any practical knowledge of the vast deserts and mountains of the West or, for that matter, of how to mine gold. Information was produced quickly as newspapers, publishers, and businessmen hastened to cash in on gold fever, but much of it was unreliable, contradictory, and changed frequently.

By providing a historical context for assessing information and by viewing communication strategies as a core element of the gold rush itself, Stillson reveals a connection between media, myth, and reality in the formative years of the nation’s most volatile region.

Sentimental Journey: The Art of Alfred Jacob Miller, by Lisa Strong (Amon Carter Museum, 2008).

Over the past two decades, much valuable scholarship has emerged on how western American art has reflected American nationalist or expansionist ideologies. In Sentimental Journey: The Art of Alfred Jacob Miller, Lisa Strong takes a new approach, however, by examining how Miller tailored his western scenes to suit the specific needs and interests of local audiences.

FRUITS OF VICTORY: The Woman’s Land Army of America in the Great War, by Elaine F. Weiss (Potomac Books, 2008).

Imagine a spunkier, and more controversial, Rosie the Riveter—a generation older, and more outlandish for her time. She is the "farmerette" of the Woman's Land Army of America, doing a man's job, in military-style uniform, on the rural home front during WWI.

From 1917 to 1920 the Woman’s Land Army brought thousands of city workers, society women, artists, business professionals, and college students into rural America to take over the farm work after men were called to wartime service. These women wore military-style uniforms, lived in communal camps, and did what was considered “men’s work”—plowing fields, driving tractors, planting, harvesting, and hauling lumber.

The WLA’s short but spirited life also foreshadowed some of the most profound and contentious social issues America would face in the twentieth century: women’s changing role in society and the workplace, the problem of social class distinctions in a democracy, the mechanization and urbanization of society, the role of science and technology, and the physiological and psychological differences between men and women.