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Walter Webb’s “ The Great Plains” is the history of the American plainsas interpreted by Webb a white male. Webb believed that the environmentchallenged and shaped the culture throughout the plains. In his book hedescribes how the high plains are different, and are remnants of theoriginal debris apron. You can best sum up his view of the plain in asentence he wrote stating; “A plain’s environment is characterized as aplane or level surface, is treeless and is sub-humid.”(Webb 7) Webb’s views on the Indians don’t really come off as racist to mepersonally, I think he’s just telling the story the way he sees it at hispoint in time. One thing that interested me was how the Indian culturecorrelates with the climate and vegetation. The maps he shows reallybring to light how culture and eating habits are affected by environment.He describes the plains Indians as nomadic depending solely on buffalo.They also used “beasts of burden” starting with dogs, than using horsesonce they arrived. Webb believed that Indians getting horses was asignificant development for their life on the plains. He said, “ Steamand electricity have not wrought a greater revolution in the of civilizedlife than the horse did the savage life of the plains.”(Webb 53) Another topic Webb touches on is the presence of Spanish explorers on theGreat Plains. Webb writes about how the Spanish are used to the sub-humidclimate and landscape. It seems as if the Spanish were the perfectculture to come explore the plains because they could endure the plains.Texas was an area of the plains Webb focused on. He talked of Indianraids on San Antonio and the settlement of Austin. And how when capturedby Comanches, Austin was allowed to keep his freedom and all hisbelongings except for equipment for horses. That shows how certaincultures value different items. Webb doesn’t speak of women much, but hedoes state that the plains “ don’t provide the luxuries a women needs.”This really gives you his view on women on the plains. Webb’s continuing point the whole book is how environment shape how thepeople live, and that people need to continually adapt to the environmentto survive. He believes that the plains are a great obstacle for whitemen, and to survive they must constantly adjust. I enjoyed reading Webb’s“Great Plains” he gave a very interesting look at the Great Plainsthrough his eyes.