Böcker av Gary Clayton Anderson

Born on a farm in the Cherokee Nation near present Oologah, Oklahoma, in 1879, Will Rogers shared his rural, agricultural beginnings with many Americans at the turn of the century. But Rogers brought his small-town talents to a national audience, becoming a mainstay of early American mass culture. Although Rogers is remembered today for his success in vaudeville and the nascent American film industry, history has largely forgotten his considerable influence as a political commentator, an aspect of Rogers's life that Gary Clayton Anderson explores at length in this brief but complete biography.Rogers's contributions to early American mass culture, the catalog of powerful personages that he counted among his friends, and his extensive writings about the political issues of the day make Rogers an ideal figure through which to explore the American interwar period. High school and college students will relate well to Rogers, whose political opinions evolved as he gained exposure to people, places, organizations, and ideas beyond rural Oklahoma. Rogers's conflicted relationship with his indigenous American heritage also provides a window on the history of race relations in America.This paperback edition includes a new afterword by the author, along with study and discussion questions for every chapter.

In Kinsmen of Another Kind, Anderson shows how the Dakota concept of kinship affected the tribe's complex relationships with the whites. The Dakota were obligated to help their relatives by any means possible. Traders who were adopted or who married into the tribe gained from this relationship -- but had reciprocal responsibilities. After the 1820s, the trade in furs declined, more whites moved into the territory, and the Dakota became more economically dependent on the whites. When American traders and officials failed to fulfill their obligations, many Dakotas finally saw the whites as enemies to be driven from Minnesota.

By confronting head-on the romanticized version of Texas history that made heroes out of Houston, Lamar, and Baylor, Gary Clayton Anderson helps us understand that the history of the Lone Star state is darker and more complex than the mythmakers allowed.