Alvin M. Josephy Jr.

Nez Perce Summer, 1877 tells the story of a people’s epic struggle to survive spiritually, culturally, and physically in the face of unrelenting military force. Written by one of the foremost experts in frontier military history, Jerome A. Greene, and reviewed by members of the Nez Perce tribe, this definitive treatment of the Nez Perce War is the first to incorporate research from all known accounts of Nez Perce and U.S. military participants. Enhanced by sixteen detailed maps and forty-nine historic photographs, Greene’s gripping narrative takes readers on a three-and-one-half month 1,700-mile journey across the wilds of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana territories. All of the skirmishes and battles of the war receive detailed treatment, which benefits from Greene’s astute analysis of the strategies and decision making on both sides. Between 100 and 150 of the more than 800 Nez Perce men, women, and children who began the trek were killed during the war. Almost as many died in the months following the surrender, after they were exiled to malaria-ridden northeastern Oklahoma. Army deaths numbered 113. The casualties on both sides were an extraordinary price for a war that nobody wanted but whose history has since fascinated generations of Americans.

The rivers, canyons, and prairies of the Columbia Basin are the homeland of the Nez Perce. The Nez Perce, or Nimiipuu, inhabited much of what is now north central Idaho and portions of Oregon and Washington for thousands of years. The story of how western settlement drastically affected the Nimiipuu is one of the great and at times tragic sagas of American history. Renowned western historian Alvin M. Josephy Jr. describes the Nimiipuu's attachment to the land and their way of life, religion, and vibrant culture. He also chronicles the western expansion that displaced them, beginning with the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1805 and followed by the influx of traders and trappers, then miners and farmers. Josephy traces the ill fortune of the Nez Perce as their homeland was carved up by treaties, creating an atmosphere of hostility that would culminate in the Nez Perce war of 1877 and conclude with Chief Joseph's famous pronouncement: "I will fight no more forever." Despite the challenges of the past, the Nimiipuu have maintained their ties to the land. In his introduction to the book, Jeremy FiveCrows details how the tribe has fought for self government to undo the damage wrought by shortsighted practices.

Eleven thought-provoking experts from the United States and Canada explore society, culture, and change in the great, resource-laden Northwest. Essays examine the European exploration of the Pacific coast, American and Canadian comparative development, the political and constitutional foundations, economic globalization, gendered and class history, and perspectives on the Native American, black, Asian American, and Hispanic citizenry.Included are contributions by Susan Armitage, Kenneth S. Coates, James M. Dolliver, Gordon Hirabayashi, Alvin M. Josephy Jr., Howard R. Lamar, John McClelland Jr., E. Mark Moreno, Quintard Taylor, David J. Weber, and Donald Worster. Terra Northwest continues the Sherman and Mabel Smith Pettyjohn Lecture Series of publications examining the essential aspects of Northwest history.

Stanley Lyman, who was the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) superintendent at the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1973, gives an inside view of what happened when the American Indian Movement (AIM) activists occupied the village of Wounded Knee. Close to the action, he recorded it with unusual candor, directing his sorrow, frustration, and occasional anger to all parties involved—the Tribal Council, the Justice Department, the BIA, FBI, and AIM. His account of the besiegers and besieged reveals a well-meaning and intelligent man forced by dramatic events to reevaluate some long-cherished assumptions. It deserves to be read and studied in any attempt to understand fully Wounded Knee II.