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Ghost Dances: Proving Up on the Great Plains
Hardcover
Biographies GeneralGeneral SociologyRegional: Midwest
ISBN13: 9780316199841
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Published: Aug 21 2012
Pages: 336
Weight: 1.00
Height: 1.30 Width: 5.60 Depth: 8.40
Language: English
Growing up in South Dakota, Josh Garrett-Davis knew he would leave. But as a young adult, he kept going back--in dreams and reality and by way of books. With this beautifully written narrative about a seemingly empty but actually rich and complex place, he has reclaimed his childhood, his unusual family--and the Great Plains.
Among the subjects and people that bring his Midwestern Plains to life are the destruction and resurgence of the American bison; Native American Ghost Dancers, who attempted to ward off destruction by supernatural means; the political allegory to be found in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; and current attempts by ecologists to rewild the Plains, complete with cheetahs. Garrett-Davis infuses the narrative with stories of his family as well--including his great-great-grandparents' twenty-year sojourn in Nebraska as homesteaders and his progressive Methodist cousin Ruth, a missionary in China ousted by Mao's revolution. GHOST DANCES is a fluid combination of memoir and history and reportage that reminds us our roots matter.
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