For decades, the story of the American West has been told as a glorious tale of conquest and rugged individualism--the triumph of progress. But recently, a new school of historians has challenged this view, creating what is known as the "new western history," an approach that gives a central role to the environment, native peoples, and the concentration of power in the hands of a few. Foremost among these historians is Donald Worster. In Worster's writings, the western past emerges not as a march of Manifest Destiny but rather as an unfolding relationship between humankind and nature. In Under Western Skies, Worster provides an eloquent introduction to the changing traditions of western historical writing and then demonstrates his own approach through fascinating case studies. For example, he takes a hard look at the struggle by the Lakota to regain ownership of the Black Hills, examining not only the legal history of treaties and court cases but also the importance of the Black Hills in Indian religion and the way they have been mismanaged by the U.S. government. He discusses the cowboy in terms of the new ecology that arose from livestock ranching--the endless miles of fences, the changes in the environment wrought by extensive grazing, certain species of animals almost wiped out because they were considered a danger to sheep and cattle. But Worster's view of nature is not as simple or as, linear as for instance, Bill McKibben's stark picture in The End of Nature, a picture Worster argues against. From the mining ghost towns of the Rockies to the uprooted farm families of the Dust Bowl, nature sometimes wins the struggle. Even the Hoover Dam, he reminds us, may one day be overcome by the patient Colorado River. Under Western Skies both offers intriguing insights into important aspects of our history and instills a new appreciation for the place of nature, native peoples, and the struggles over money and power in the western past.

唐纳德·沃斯特，是美国堪萨斯大学赫尔杰出教授，美国人文与艺术学院院士：主要从事美国环境（生态）史和新西部史学的研究，著述颇丰，且以思想深邃、观点锐利、文字优美著称，曾分获国际、国内数十种图书奖和世界知名的人文社会科学大奖，还曾多次获得普利策奖提名。其大部分论著被译成包括中文、日文、韩文、法文、德文、意大利文、西班牙文、瑞典文、捷克文等在内的多种文字，对世界环境史的建立与发展起到了关键性的作用。作品目前已在我国出版的有《自然的经济体系》（商务印书馆）、《尘暴》（生活·读书·新知三联书店）等数种。