Books published by University Press of Kansas

Features the best and most influential essays by Donald Pisani, one the US's leading environmental and western historians. Collectively, the essays highlight the central role played by land, water, and timber allocation in the American West and show how efforts to achieve justice and efficiency were compromised by the region's obsession with achieving rapid economic growth.

This book reconstructs the discourse of American federalism, a discourse grounded in the intense debate over the role of government in the regulation of the economy.

Books on John Locke abound, but until now none have captured the real Locke. By removing the layers of misperception that have clouded the philosopher's portrait for decades, Jerome Huyler reveals a startling new image that suggests a much stronger link between Locke's thought and the American Founding.

Flynn chronicles the draft's military and strategic successes and failures in America's mid-century wars. He shows how major institutions and lobbies representing science, education, and various professions and religions influenced it and how the selective character of the draft eventually made the system inequitable and helped cause its downfall.

Long before the current calls for national service, civic responsibility, and the restoration of community values, the Progressives initiated a remarkably similar challenge. Eldon Eisenach traces the evolution of this powerful national movement from its theoretical origins through its dramatic rise and sudden demise, and shows why their philosophy still speaks to us with such eloquence.

The Pacific Northwest has always invoked images of lush forested landscapes and travelog vistas. More recently, such images have been marred by much-publicized controversies pitting spotted owls and salmon against logging interests and power companies. But, as Robert Bunting shows, such conflicts are only the most recent emblems of the competition for dominion in the region.

Most people think Star Wars was Reagan's idea, but its roots reach decades farther back. Military historian Don Baucom traces them to the dawn of the atomic age in 1944. In this first scholarly account of the origins of SDI, Baucom brings together the political, technological, and strategic forces that have shaped the history of ballistic missile defenses from World War II to the present.

Before the federal constitution was written, the Confederate Congress established a policy providing land grants for local and state governments to support public schools. Compiling information from the twenty-two states that still own such trust lands, the authors provide a rare look at public land management from a state rather than federal government perspective.

This text tells the story of how John Kriss made large-scale farming work. It shows how he kept records of crops and rainfall to manage the land carefully, farming thousands of acres in an environmentally sensitive way and retaining a viable operation even during the Dust Bowl years.

Presenting a significant new interpretation of Napoleonic warfare, Robert M. Epstein argues persuasively that the true origins of modern war can be found in the Franco-Austrian War of 1809. Epstein contends that the 1809 war had more in common with the American Civil War and subsequent conflicts than with the decisive Napoleonic campaigns that preceded it.

Over a century ago, tallgrass prairie stretched over most of what is now Iowa, Illinois, southern Minnesota, northern Missouri, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. Today only a few scattered patches remain. The author traces the history of the prairie and examines grassland ecology.

An outstanding contribution to the growing literature in world-systems theory, Kathleen Schwartzman's study of the first Portuguese republic demonstrates the significant ways in which a nation's social and political structures are shaped by its position in the global economy.

Intriguing place names abound in Kansas. This handy place name gazatteer is both a valuable reference and a source of good fun.

Attuned to the revival of moral concern in public and private life, Edmund Pincoffs argues in Quandaries and Virtues that the "structures known as ethical theories are more threats to moral sanity and balance than instruments for their attainment because ethical theories are, by nature, reductive."

More than fifty years after repeal of the Volstead Act, the US continues to debate the issues surrounding the use and control of alcohol. Until now, however, there has been no broadly interpretive social history that chronicled prohibition in Kansas. Robert Bader's comprehensive account presents an even-handed analysis of the reform movement and of the role of women and of religion in it.

By the end of the Civil War, fatalities from that conflict had far exceeded previous American experience, devastating families and communities alike. As John Neff shows, commemorating the 620,000 lives lost proved to be a persistent obstacle to the hard work of reuniting the nation, as every memorial observation compelled recollections of the war.

Written for both scholars and students, this book explains how and why social issues come to be defined in different ways, how these definitions are expressed in the world of politics, and what consequences these definitions have for government action and agenda-setting dynamics.

The Kaiser's military theorists have often been portrayed as narrow-minded thinkers wedded to an outmoded way of war. This book argues that they were fully aware of the implications of advanced weaponry and that the slaughter of World War I was due to deficient training amongst younger officers.