Books published by University of Oklahoma Press

At age six, Carl Albert knew he wanted to serve in the United States Congress. In 1947 he realized his dream. In Little Giant, Albert relates the story of his life in Oklahoma and his road to Congress, where he joined its leadership and shaped the legislation known as Kennedy's New Frontier and Johnson's Great Society.

Traces the history of all major projects, researchers, theoretical developments, and sites contributing to our geoarchaeological knowledge of North America's Great Plains. The book provides a historical overview and explores theoretical questions that confront geoarchaeologists working in the Great Plains.

Mining a wealth of sources, Albert L. Hurtado delivers the definitive biography of John Sutter, a Swiss expatriate who founded New Helvetia, a settlement in California's Sacramento Valley which drew overland immigrants to California in the 1840s and then--after gold was discovered by Sutter's employees--a flood of fortune seekers. Illustrations. Maps.

Louise Robbins tells the story of the political, social, economic, and cultural threads that became interwoven in a particular time and place, creating a strong web of opposition. This combination of forces ensnared Ruth Brown and her colleagues - for the most part women and African Americans - who championed the cause of racial equality.

An incorrigible trickster, a clever thief, a rogue, sometimes a magnanimous hero, often a vengeful loser, but always a survivor, Coyote is the most complex character in the Nez Perce cycle of traditional myths. Nez Perce Coyote Tales, a collection of fifty-two stories translated from the native language, represents the most extensive treatment of the character of Coyote for any Native American group. Within these pages are stories of Coyote and various monsters, such as Flint Man, Killer Butterfly, and Cannibal: tales of Coyote and other animals, such as Bull, Fox, and Bat: and many other stories, including how Coyote brought the buffalo, warred with Winter, killed the grizzly bears, married his daughter, and visited White Mountain.In an introduction and concluding chapter, Deward E. Walker, Jr., and Daniel N. Matthews analyze Coyote''s social relations and interaction with other character in Nez Perce mythology. They reveal how the myths, besides being entertaining stories, also serve to impart traditional cultural values, proper social relations, and other practical information.

Spanning the years from the 1540s to the 1790s, this text provides a panoramic view of Indian peoples, and Spanish and French intruders in the early American Southwest. It includes the histories of the Caddo, Hopis, Pueblo, Apache, Navajo, Ute and Wichita peoples.

Reconsidering the myth of "good guys in white hats" The Texas Rangers have been the source of tall tales and the stuff of legend as well as a growing darker reputation. But the story of the Rangers along the Mexican border between Texas statehood and the onset of the Civil War has been largely overlooked-until now.This engaging history pulls readers back to a chaotic time along the lower Rio Grande in the mid-nineteenth century. Texas Devils challenges the time-honored image of "good guys in white hats" to reveal the more complicated and sobering reality behind the Ranger Myth.Michael L. Collins demonstrates that, rather than bringing peace to the region, the Texas Rangers contributed to the violence and were often brutal in their injustices against Spanish-speaking inhabitants, who dubbed them los diablos Tejanos-the Texas devils. Collins goes beyond other, more laudatory Ranger histories to focus on the origins of the legend, casting Ranger immortals such as John Coffee "Jack" Hays, Ben McCulloch, and John S. "Rip" Ford in a new and not always flattering light.In revealing a barbaric code of conduct on the Rio Grande frontier, Collins shows that much of the Ranger Myth doesn''t hold up to close historical scrutiny. Texas Devils offers exciting true stories of the Rangers for anyone captivated by their legend, even as it provides a corrective to that legend.

Of all firsthand accounts of lawlessness in the old Southwest, none is more fascinating than Pat F. Garrett's The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid. First published in 1882, a year after Sheriff Garrett killed the Kid, it is at once the most authoritative biography of William H. Bonney and the foundation of the Billy the Kid legend.

A collection of 29 essays that presents women of all races as actors in their own lives and in the history of the American West. It locates women in a framework that connects gender, race and class. Among the women covered are Spanish-Mexican settlers and Chinese, Basque, Japanese and Koreans.

Arizona's ghost towns exemplify man's courage, tenacity, and perhaps even foolishness in his search for wealth. Inevitable by-products of the development of gold, silver, copper, and other mineral deposits in Arizona, whatever their design or purpose, when their existence was no longer profitable they slipped into the category of ghost towns.

The first complete version in English of the "Book of the People" of the Quiche Maya, the most powerful nation of the Guatemalan highlands in pre-Conquest times. Generally regarded as America's oldest book, the Popol Vuh is the most important of the five pieces of the great library treasures of the Maya that survived the Spanish Conquest.

In this book an international authority on Roman legal history sets forth in clear, understandable English the institutions of Roman law and traces their development through the Byzantine Empire into medieval and modern Europe. This is an indispensable study for every American lawyer and for anyone interesting in legal and political history.

In the grim reality of Southern California's grape fields, even the sun is a dark spot. For the migrant grape pickers in Crossing Vines, Rigoberto Gonzalez's novel that spans a single workday, the sun is a constant, malevolent force. The characters endure back-breaking, monotonous work as they succumb to the whims of their corrupt bosses.

Pundits and social observers have voiced alarm each year as fewer Americans involve themselves in voluntary groups that meet regularly. Thousands of nonprofit groups have been launched in recent times, but most are run by professionals who lobby Congress or deliver social services to clients. What will happen to U.S. democracy if participatory groups and social movements wither, while civic involvement becomes one more occupation rather than every citizen's right and duty? In Diminished Democracy, Theda Skocpol shows that this decline in public involvement has not always been the case in this country-and how, by understanding the causes of this change, we might reverse it.