In the past 150 years as many as two thousand Oklahoma hamlets, villages, towns, and even cities have bloomed and then died. Some have faded away, with not even a fallen chimney to mark their location. Others have left ghostly marks of their past--mounds of rubble grown over with grass or crumbling walls of buildings. A few still cling tenaciously to life, with a few inhibitants left to call them home.

In these pages John W. Morris tells about 130 of the towns. He describes how and why each was established, the activities of its people in its heyday, and the conditions that cuased it to fade away. Of course, to tell about the towns is also to tell about the people who built them and lived in them--and once had high hopes for their success.

Begun in 1927 by University of Oklahoma history professor Edward Everett Dale, the Western History Collections gathers and preserves rare research materials for scholars in anthropology, Native American studies, Oklahoma history, and the history of the American West. This invaluable reference tool has been compiled to make the collections more accessible and to honor the collections’ 75-year Diamond Jubilee.

The guide describes more than 1,500 manuscript collections, including papers from pioneers, artists, politicians, educators, businessmen, authors, anthropologists, and Native American leaders. Manuscript subjects include the Five Civilized Tribes; pioneer and frontier life; missionary activities in Indian Territory; cowboys and the range cattle industry; Oklahoma’s petroleum industry; and the history of railroads and transportation in the West. Recent acquisitions include the papers of Wilma P. Mankiller, the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation.

For most Oklahomans the story of the state begins with the removal of the Five Tribes to Indian Territory early in the nineteenth century. In fact, Oklahoma has a rich, diverse, and enduring native cultural heritage. Using recent discoveries and information unearthed since its original 1980 publication, From Mounds to Mammoths presents Oklahoma’s prehistory from thirty thousand years ago to historic contact times.

Claudette Gilbert and Robert L. Brooks take the reader back thousands of years to experience life on the plains. They discuss the Cooper site, which has given us valuable insights into Folsom technology, hunting practices, and ritual. Here archaeologists discovered a thunderbolt painted on a bison skull-the earliest evident of artwork in North America. The story of Spiro Mounds, a more recent culture, reveals village life in the Arkansas River basin 800-1000 years ago.

Told chronologically with vivid chapter-opening vignettes, From Mounds to Mammoths provides a fascinating glimpse into the variety of Oklahoma native cultures.

Oklahoma is home to nearly forty American Indian tribes, and it includes the largest Native population of any state. As a result, many Americans think of the state as “Indian Country.” For more than half a century readers have turned to Muriel H. Wright’s A Guide to the Indian Tribes of Oklahoma as the authoritative source for information on the state’s Native peoples. Now Blue Clark, an enrolled member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, has rendered a completely new guide that reflects the drastic transformation of Indian Country in recent years.

As a synthesis of current knowledge, this book places the state’s Indians in their contemporary context as no other book has done. Solidly grounded in scholarship and Native oral tradition, it provides general readers the unique story of each tribe, from the Alabama-Quassartes to the Yuchis. Each entry contains a complete statistical and narrative summary of the tribe, encompassing everything from origin tales and archaeological research to contemporary ceremonies and tribal businesses. The entries also include tribal websites and suggested readings, along with photographs depicting prominent tribal personages, visitor sites, and accomplishments.

It was the way out. Invented on the cusp of the depression, Route 66 was the road out of the mines, off the farm, away from troubled Main Street. It was the road to opportunity. Between 1926 and 1956, many people from the southern and plains states trekked west to California on Route 66, the Mother Road. Some never reached California. Instead, they settled along the road, building restaurants, tourist attractions, gas stations, and motels. The architecture of each structure reflected regional building traditions and the difficulties of the times. The designs of buildings and signs served as invitations for passing travelers to stop, fill their tanks, have a bite, and stay the night.

Along Route 66 describes the architectural styles found along the highway from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California, and pairs photos with stories of the buildings and of the people who built them, lived in them, and made a living from them. With striking black-and-white images and unforgettable oral histories of this rapidly disappearing architecture, Quinta Scott has docomented the culture of America’s most famous road.

At age twenty-six, Caroline Frankston is certain life is passing her by in the town of Barton Creek. Matthew Haynes has made no indication of his feelings for her, so she decides the time has come for her to move away from her family and friends for a fresh start. Once in Oklahoma City, Caroline is fascinated by the many opportunities there and begins moving on with her life. Meanwhile, Matt realizes his true feelings for Caroline and plans to tell her on her next trip home. When Caroline’s train has an accident and she goes missing, Matt sets out in search of her, wondering if any chance of spending his life with Caroline has disappeared.

Sturken contends that a consumer culture of comfort objects such as World Trade Center snow globes, FDNY teddy bears, and Oklahoma City Memorial t-shirts and branded water, as well as reenactments of traumatic events in memorial and architectural designs, enables a national tendency to see U.S. culture as distant from both history and world politics. A kitsch comfort culture contributes to a “tourist” relationship to history: Americans can feel good about visiting and buying souvenirs at sites of national mourning without having to engage with the economic, social, and political causes of the violent events. While arguing for the importance of remembering tragic losses of life, Sturken is urging attention to a dangerous confluence—of memory, tourism, consumerism, paranoia, security, and kitsch—that promulgates fear to sell safety, offers prepackaged emotion at the expense of critical thought, contains alternative politics, and facilitates public acquiescence in the federal government’s repressive measures at home and its aggressive political and military policies abroad.