The Future of the Southern Plains - by Sherry L Smith (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In The Future of the Southern Plains, scholars bring the region to the forefront by asking important questions about its past and suggesting prospects for its future. The contributors, some of them natives of the region, bring to their work a blend of scholarship and personal experience. They match intellectual sophistication with deep affection for a place defined primarily as western Texas, Oklahoma, and eastern New Mexico. Within this volume is a story about America, a story about limits, and a story about challenging those limits.

Seven historians, one geographer, and a paleoclimatologist contribute a wealth of observation, analysis, and commentary on the environmental characteristics and history of the Southern Plains. They address such themes as failing communities, scarce water, endangered species, and disappearing ways of life--and the possible results of these developments not only in the Southern Plains but elsewhere on the globe.

Based on presentations at a symposium sponsored by the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University, these essays treat the most important aspects of life on the Southern Plains today, from climate, politics, and religion to business and environmental renewal.

Contributors and topics include:

• Sherry L. Smith: Introduction
• Dan Flores: Environmental destruction and preservation
• John Miller Morris: Corporations and family farms
• Diana Davids Olien: Oil production
• John Opie: Water management
• Jeff Roche: Political history
• Yolanda Romero: Political history
• Elliott West: Exploration Connie Woodhouse: Droughts

Review Quotes

"Smith provides a comprehensive view of the Southern Plains. I know of nothing quite like this book, both in the information it brings together and how it brings the past to bear on a twenty-first century."