The Elkhorn River originates in north-central Nebraska and empties into the Platte River just west of Omaha. One of the first written records of the Elkhorn describes a flood. A flood hindered travel up the river by the valley's first non-Indian settlers. Decade after decade, floods have swept away mill dams, destroyed crops, drowned stock, soaked inventories, filled basements, undercut roads, washed out railroads and bridges, turned unfortunate riverside homesaEURO"even a dance hallaEURO"into unwieldy watercraft, and killed people. Everyone in the Elkhorn Valley agreed the Flood of 1944 was the worst in history. Until the deadly Flood of 2010 took the title. From a perspective unusual on the Great PlainsaEURO"the problem of too much wateraEURO" Flood on the Tracks offers an intimate portrait of life in the Elkhorn River Basin of northeast Nebraska. In a region often defined by aridity, rivers and their basins have provided sustenance, shelter, fertile soil, and overland highways. In many ways Plains rivers organize human lives. When they overflow, which they can be counted on to do, they disorganize them. Using Plains Indian winter counts, postcards, photographs, newspaper accounts, government records, and more, Flood on the Tracks chronicles the river's natural and human history from the Plains Indians into the twenty-first century. The Elkhorn's floods show us how the nature of disaster has changed and how Plainsfolk liveaEURO"and dieaEURO"with a river.

The Elkhorn River originates in north-central Nebraska and empties into the Platte River just west of Omaha. One of the first written records of the Elkhorn describes a flood. A flood hindered travel up the river by the valley's first non-Indian settlers. Decade after decade, floods have swept away mill dams, destroyed crops, drowned stock, soaked inventories, filled basements, undercut roads, washed out railroads and bridges, turned unfortunate riverside homesaEURO"even a dance hallaEURO"into unwieldy watercraft, and killed people. Everyone in the Elkhorn Valley agreed the Flood of 1944 was the worst in history. Until the deadly Flood of 2010 took the title. From a perspective unusual on the Great PlainsaEURO"the problem of too much wateraEURO" Flood on the Tracks offers an intimate portrait of life in the Elkhorn River Basin of northeast Nebraska. In a region often defined by aridity, rivers and their basins have provided sustenance, shelter, fertile soil, and overland highways. In many ways Plains rivers organize human lives. When they overflow, which they can be counted on to do, they disorganize them. Using Plains Indian winter counts, postcards, photographs, newspaper accounts, government records, and more, Flood on the Tracks chronicles the river's natural and human history from the Plains Indians into the twenty-first century. The Elkhorn's floods show us how the nature of disaster has changed and how Plainsfolk liveaEURO"and dieaEURO"with a river.

While many studies of religion in the West have focused on the region's diversity, freedom, and individualism, Todd M. Kerstetter brings together the three most glaring exceptions to those rules to explore the boundaries of tolerance as enforced by society and the U.S. government. God's Country, Uncle Sam's Land analyzes Mormon history from the Utah Expedition and Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857 through subsequent decades of federal legislative and judicial actions aimed at ending polygamy and limiting church power. It also focuses on the Lakota Ghost Dancers and the Wounded Knee Massacre in South Dakota (1890), and the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas (1993). In sharp contrast to the mythic image of the West as the "Land of the Free," these three tragic episodes reveal the West as a cultural battleground--in the words of one reporter, "a collision of guns, God, and government." Asking important questions about what happens when groups with a deep trust in their differing inner truths meet, Kerstetter exposes the religious motivations behind government policies that worked to alter Mormonism and extinguish Native American beliefs.