The Military and Kansas History

This bibliographic article is part of the magazine's "Review Essay Series". The author gives a thorough survey of the traditional literature dealing with military history in Kansas. He also analyzes the more recent publications and suggests many areas of the topic that need further study and writing. He talks about "boots and saddles" history which he describes as "little more than myopic, ethnocentric accounts of battles and military leaders. In the West this meant campaigns against American Indians, told from the army's point of view, promoting the ideas that the military was a tool of civilization, sweeping savage barbarians out of the way of white progress".