Webblog

I found the book The Great Plains to be a good overview of the history of white people on the great plains but it didnt have enough of a history textbook sense to it. Webbs description of the land and its formation was good although it lacked a good geological history of the plains. His chapter about the plains indians was very informative. I was unaware how short of a time the plains indians had access to horses and how fast they adapted to them. The chapter on the Spainish on the great plains was another eye opening chapter, it was common knowledge to me that the first white people among the plains were French fur traders. The Spainish struggling to setup colonies on the plains and their conflicts with the indians was also very intriquing. The chapter where Webb tells of the homestead acts was very descriptive but again it lacked a good description of the people who came to the plains to fill the homestead claims, there was no mention of what nationalities were represented.

I found Webb as an author to be very confusing. He seems to be a very passionate person that likes to tell fantastic stories about the romance of the great plains but then fills it will mind numbing statistics and very dry descriptions. His writing about the cattle kingdom was truly fascinating but he follows it up with the tedious chapter about transportation and fencing. He is very ambiguous, he will glorify than at once vilify, its as if he forgets his opinion on something soon after writing it.

One thing I disliked about Webb was his short sightedness about the great plains. Although Webb makes points and descriptions about the whole great plains, he seems to have a xenophobia for anything outside the state of Texas. Webb also shows his Texas bias when he discusses agriculture, he clearly favors the rancher and cattleman in the tradition of almost all Texans. Another problem I had with the book was Webb's omitance of the waves of immigrants that came to the plains to fill up the land.