front cover of National Identity
National Identity
Anthony D. Smith
University of Nevada Press, 1993
Why do people feel loyalty to a nation, as well as to family, region, class, and religion? When is a healthy sense of national identity transformed into virulent nationalism? What are the ethnic roots of so many contemporary conflicts? Can nations be created by design when colonial or multiethnic empires collapse? And what, exactly, is a nation? Such controversial questions are analyzed in this stimulating new text. Smith asks why the first modern nation-states developed in the West and considers how ethnic origins, religion, language, and shared symbols provide a sense of nation—even to the Basques, Kurds, and Tamils who are without states of their own. He illuminates his argument with a wealth of detailed examples: the divisions in the former Soviet Union, ethnic separatism within Europes, pan-Arab and pan-African movements, the successes and failures of nation-building on every continent. Throughout National Identity Smith stresses the positive as well as the pernicious aspects of strong national allegiances. A provocative final chapter considers the prospects of a post-national world. This will be of particular interest to ethnographers, students of international studies, historical sociologists, and political scientists.
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A Natural History of Oregon's Lake Abert in the Northwest Great Basin Landscape
Ron Larson
University of Nevada Press, 2023

A beautifully detailed exploration of flora and fauna.

Author Ron Larson offers a natural history of a Great Basin landscape that focuses on the northern region including Lake Abert and Abert Rim, and the adjacent area in southcentral Oregon. Although the jewel of this landscape is a lake, the real story is the many plants and animals—from the very primitive, reddish, bacteria-like archaea that thrive only in its high-salinity waters to the Golden Eagles and ravens that soar above the desert. The untold species in and around the lake are part of an ecosystem shaped by ageless processes from massive lava flows, repeated drought, and blinding snowstorms. It is an environment rich with biotic and physical interconnections going back millions of years. 

The Great Basin, and in particular the Lake Abert region, is special and needs our attention to ensure it remains that way. We must recognize the importance of water for Great Basin ecosystems and the need to manage it better, and we must acknowledge how rich the Great Basin is in natural history. Salt lakes, wherever they occur, are valuable and provide critically important habitat for migratory water birds, which are unfortunately under threat from upstream water diversions and climate change. Larson’s book will help people understand that the Great Basin is unique and that wise stewardship is necessary to keep it unspoiled. The book is an essential reference source, drawing together a wide range of materials that will appeal to general readers and researchers alike.

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The Nature Way
Corbin Harney
University of Nevada Press, 2009

Corbin Harney’s long life encompassed remarkable changes in the lives of Native Americans and in the technological and political development of the world. Born into an impoverished Western Shoshone family on the Nevada-Idaho border and orphaned as a newborn, he was brought up by grandparents who taught him the traditional ways of their people and the ancient spiritual beliefs that sustained their culture. As an adult, Harney found his calling as a traditional healer and spiritual leader. Soon he became involved in the Shoshone struggle for civil rights, including their efforts to protect and heal their traditional lands in what became the Nevada Test Site. This involvement led Harney to his eventual role as a leader of the international antinuclear movement.The Nature Way is a rich compendium of Corbin Harney’s experience and wisdom. His account of his life incorporates the tragic history of Native Americans in the Great Basin after the arrival of Euro-Americans, his realization of his own identity as a Native American, and his long study of his people’s traditions and spiritual practices. His summary of the Shoshone and Paiute use of indigenous plants for food and healing highlights their understanding that the Earth and her denizens and products must be respected and protected in order to preserve the connection that all creatures have with sacred Mother Earth. Finally, his account of his role as an antinuclear activist expands on his awareness of the human responsibility to protect the Earth, especially from the extreme danger posed by nuclear technology and nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Corbin Harney’s voice is one of the clearest expressions yet of the values, concerns, and spirituality of contemporary Native America. He offers all of us an eloquent plea that we respect and cooperate with Nature to ensure the survival of the planet.

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Negotiating With Eta
Obstacles To Peace In The Basque Country, 1975-1988
Robert P. Clark
University of Nevada Press, 1990

Since the late 1960s, the Basque insurgent organization ETA (Euzkadi ta Askatasuna, or Basque Homeland and Freedom) has been engaged in a violent struggle against the Spanish state in an effort to gain the independence of the Basque Country. ETA violence has led to the death of hundreds of people, making the organization the most violent insurgent group in Europe. Between 1975 and 1988, nearly thirty attempts to negotiate an end to violence, with a few limited exceptions, all ended in failure. This important book examines why the efforts to negotiate have failed and makes suggestions on how to improve the chances for successful discussion in the future. Although Clark does not disprove the conventional wisdom that negotiation with terrorists is a bad idea, he does begin from the opposing point of view that there may be some positive values to be realized from such negotiation.Negotiating with ETA describes the various factions that are interested in the outcome of such negotiations and the Spanish antiterrorist policy throughout the period under examination. The book also recounts the early attempts to negotiate, the first attempt at "social reintegration," various attempts by the Basque Government to get negotiations started, negotiation efforts under the Spanish socialist government of Felipe González, and the lengthy negotiations that took place in Algeria. A wide range of scholars and specialists will find this book valuable, including those interested in contemporary Spanish politics, ethnic nationalism, Basque affairs, the problem of terrorism, and conflict resolution.

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Neon Nevada
Expanded Edition
Sheila Swan
University of Nevada Press, 2023

Nevada’s iconic artform comes to life.

Sheila Swan and Peter Laufer take readers on a journey, not only along the Las Vegas Strip, but down quiet, two-lane rural roads punctuated occasionally by a neon sign—those glistening beacons that represent civilization in our vast Great Basin. The photographers’ stunning work captures the argon violets, krypton purples, helium golds, and xenon blues that glow amidst the nighttime desert sky. 

The book makes clear that neon is not just a medium for casino advertising. The colorful images of cowboys and cowgirls, animals, desert landscapes, and countless other creative designs all illuminate an aspect of Americana—the neon sign—that helps define Nevada and its businesses, from bars and casinos to hardware stores, restaurants, motels, and theaters that line the streets of the Silver State’s cities and towns, and those rural areas that are barely a blip on the map. With a compelling blend of striking full-color photographs and fascinating historical commentary, the book celebrates an artform that wholly embraces the state’s unique personality. 

First published in 1994, this newly updated and expanded edition of Neon Nevada explores the resurgence of this artform during the last decade, which has resulted in an appreciation of Nevada neon that is not likely to fade. Swan and Laufer’s project, this survey of neon, casts the new edition as a defining source for neon scholars and attracts neon aficionados to what can only be defined as a medium as distinctive and interesting as Nevada itself.

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Nevada
A History
Robert Laxalt
University of Nevada Press, 1991
An evocative portrait of the state that "didn't deserve to be" but became one anyway. First published in 1977, this edition includes a new preface that reexamines Laxalt's predictions for Nevada made almost 20 years ago and reflects on the changes that have occurred in the state: the urban plight of Las Vegas and Reno, the renewed appreciation of the land by conservationists and opportunists, and the explosive growth of tourism and gaming.
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Nevada
A History of the Silver State
Michael S. Green
University of Nevada Press, 2015
Nevada: A History of the Silver State has been named a CHOICE Outstanding Title.

Michael S. Green, a leading Nevada historian, provides a detailed survey of the Silver State’s past, from the arrival of the early European explorers, to the predominance of mining in the 1800s, to the rise of world-class tourism in the twentieth century, and to more recent attempts to diversify the economy.

Of the numerous themes central to Green’s analysis of Nevada’s history, luck plays a significant role in the state’s growth. The miners and gamblers who first visited the state all bet on luck. Today, the biggest contributor to Nevada’s tourist economy, gaming, still relies on that same belief in luck. Nevada’s financial system has generally been based on a “one industry” economy, first mining and, more recently, gaming. Green delves deeply into the limitations of this structure, while also exploring the theme of exploitation of the land and the overuse of the state’s natural resources. Green covers many more aspects of the Silver State’s narrative, including the dominance of one region of the state over another, political forces and corruption, and the citizens’ often tumultuous relationship with the federal government. The book will appeal to scholars, students, and other readers interested in Nevada history.
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Nevada
A History of the Silver State, 2nd edition
Michael S. Green
University of Nevada Press, 2024
Nevada: A History of the Silver State has been named a CHOICE Outstanding Title.

Michael S. Green, a leading Nevada historian, provides a detailed survey of the Silver State’s past, from the arrival of the early European explorers, to the predominance of mining in the 1800s, to the rise of world-class tourism in the twentieth century, and to more recent attempts to diversify the economy.

Of the numerous themes central to Green’s analysis of Nevada’s history, luck plays a significant role in the state’s growth. The miners and gamblers who first visited the state all bet on luck. Today, the biggest contributor to Nevada’s tourist economy, gaming, still relies on that same belief in luck. Nevada’s financial system has generally been based on a “one industry” economy, first mining and, more recently, gaming. Green delves deeply into the limitations of this structure, while also exploring the theme of exploitation of the land and the overuse of the state’s natural resources. Green covers many more aspects of the Silver State’s narrative, including the dominance of one region of the state over another, political forces and corruption, and the citizens’ often tumultuous relationship with the federal government. The book will appeal to scholars, students, and other readers interested in Nevada history.
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Nevada Place Names
A Geographical Dictionary
Helen S. Carlson
University of Nevada Press, 1974

Author and researcher Helen Carlson spent almost fourteen years searching for the origins of Nevada’s place names, using the maps of explorers, miners, government surveyors, and city planners and poring through historical accounts, archival documents, county records, and newspaper files. The result of her labors is Nevada Place Names, a fascinating mixture of history spiced with folklore, legend, and obscure facts. Out of print for some years, the book was reprinted in 1999.

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Nevada Printing History
A Bibliography Of Imprints And Publications, 1858-1880
Robert D. Armstrong
University of Nevada Press, 1981

A detailed look at Nevada's printing history from 1858 through 1880. Includes proclamations, pamphlets, menus, government publications, church programs, and more. For Nevada historians, bibliographers, book collectors, and people who are interested in the printed records produced in Nevada toward the end of the nineteenth century.

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Nevada Printing History
A Bibliography Of Imprints And Publications, 1881-1890
Robert D. Armstrong
University of Nevada Press, 1991

A detailed look at Nevada's printing history from 1881 through 1890. With over 1400 entries describing books, pamphlets, broadsides, state and local documents, fraternal and church publications, and a variety of other printed matter, this intriguing compilation serves as the companion volume to Armstrong's Nevada Printing History, 1858-1880. Armstrong includes annual summaries of events affecting the printing trade in Nevada as well as the locations and kinds of printing technology in use. This second volume also documents the planning and erection of a state printing office. Of particular interest are the summaries of individual publications that provide the reader with a picture of social, economic, and political viewpoints of the period. The author's research led him to more than 125 public institutions over a period of nearly twenty years. Historians, bibliographers, students of printing history and practice, collectors of Western Americana, antiquarian booksellers, and librarians will find this book to be an invaluable guide to Nevada's printing, its printers, and its history.

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Nevada's Changing Wildlife Habitat
An Ecological History
George E. Gruell
University of Nevada Press, 2013

For millennia the ecology of the Great Basin has evolved because of climate change and the impacts of human presence. Nevada’s Changing Wildlife Habitat is the first book to explain the transformations in the plants and animals of this region over time and how they came about. Using data gleaned from archaeological and anthropological studies, numerous historical documents, repeat photography, and several natural sciences, the authors examine changes in vegetation and their impact on wildlife species and the general health of the environment. They also outline the choices that current users and managers of rangelands face in being good stewards of this harsh but fragile environment and its wildlife.

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Nevada's Environmental Legacy
Progress or Plunder
James W. Hulse
University of Nevada Press, 2009

Nevada's relatively brief history (it became a state in 1864) has been largely a story of the exploitation of its natural resources. Mining has torn down mountains and poisoned streams and groundwater. Uncontrolled grazing by vast herds of sheep and cattle has denuded grasslands and left them prey to the invasion of noxious plant species and vulnerable to wildfire. Clear-cut logging practices have changed the composition of forests and induced serious soil erosion. More recently, military testing, including hundreds of atomic blasts to determine the efficacy of nuclear weapons, has irreversibly polluted expanses of fragile desert landscape. And rampant development throughout the state over the past four decades, along with the public's growing demand for recreational facilities, has placed intolerable demands on the arid state's limited water resources and threatened the survival of numerous rare plant and animal species. Veteran historian and Nevada native James W. Hulse considers the state's complex environmental history as a series of Faustian bargains between the state's need for economic development and the industries, government agencies, and individuals that have exploited Nevada's natural resources with little concern for the long-term consequences of their activities. His survey covers all these issues, and examines public attitudes about the environment and the role of federal and state agencies in creating, interpreting, and enforcing environmental policies.

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Nevada's Great Recession
Looking Back, Moving Forward
Elliott Parker
University of Nevada Press, 2017
Of all economic recessions experienced by the United States in the postwar period, the Great Recession that began in 2008 was the deepest, longest, and most destructive. Nevada was among the hardest hit states, its people reeling from the aftereffects, and the state government also experiencing a severe fiscal crisis. University of Nevada economics professor Elliott Parker and then-State Treasurer Kate Marshall make sense of what went wrong and why, with the hope the state will learn lessons to prevent past mistakes from being made again.
 
This is a different kind of economics book. Parker uses his expertise from doing research on the East Asian fiscal crisis to give profound insights into what happened and how to avoid future catastrophes. Marshall personalizes it by providing vignettes of what it was actually like to be in the trenches and fighting the inevitable political battles that came up, and counteracting some of the falsehoods that certain politicians were spreading about the recession.
 
Parker and Marshall’s book should be required reading for not only every single elected official in Nevada, but for any private citizen who cares about the public good.
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Nevada's Historic Buildings
A Cultural Legacy
Ronald M. James
University of Nevada Press, 2009
In 1991, Nevada’s Commission for Cultural Affairs was formed to oversee the preservation of the state’s historic buildings and the conversion of the best of them for use as cultural centers. This program has rehabilitated dozens of historic structures valued by their communities for the ways they represent the development of the state and its culture.

Nevada’s Historic Buildings highlights ninety of these buildings, describing them in the context of the state’s history and the character of the people who created and used them. Here are reminders of mining boomtowns, historic ranches, transportation, the divorce and gaming industries, the New Deal, and the innovation of Las Vegas’s post-modern aesthetic. These buildings provide a cross-section of Nevada’s rich historic and cultural heritage and their survival offers everyone the experience of touching the past. 
 
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Nevada's Turbulent 50'S
Decade Of Political And Economic Change
Al Glass
University of Nevada Press, 1981

The 1950s marked a period of significant changes for Nevada--gambling came under national and local scrutiny, atomic bombs were tested regularly near Las Vegas, and labor disputes made national headlines. Glass examines the events of the decade and their impact on Nevada and on the rest of the country.

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Nevada's Twentieth-Century Mining Boom
Tonopah, Goldfield, Ely
Russell R. Elliott
University of Nevada Press, 1966
Twenty years after the decline of the magnificent Comstock Lode, Nevada’s prosperity and population had diminished to such a degree that some popular articles questioned whether to deprive Nevada of her statehood. Then in the spring of 1900, a miner discovered silver in south-central Nevada. This casual find precipitated a spectacular latter-day mining boom that, among other things, helped to restore prosperity.
With its wealth of little-known historical data, Nevada's Twentieth-Century Mining Boom chronicles the classic pattern of gold and silver rushes and emphasizes the differences between Nevada's two boom periods, pointing to the stability of the second bonanza. The author also details the entrance of radical labor into the new camps and the violent strikes that followed at Goldfield, McGill, and Tonopah. This labor strife had a significant impact on Nevada mining for many years.  
The first in-depth study of Nevada’s latter-day boom period, this informative book gives balance to the history of mining in Nevada. Foreword by Jerome Edwards.
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The New Politics of Indian Gaming
The Rise of Reservation Interest Groups
Kenneth N. Hansen
University of Nevada Press, 2015
The advent of gaming on Indian reservations has created a new kind of tribal politics over the past three decades. Now armed with often substantial financial resources, Indigenous peoples have adjusted their political strategies from a focus on the judicial system and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to one that directly lobbies state and federal governments and non-Indigenous voters. These tactics allow tribes to play an influential role in shaping state and national policies that affect their particular interests. Using case studies of major Indian gaming states, the contributing authors analyze the interplay of tribal governance, state politics, and federalism, and illustrate the emergence of reservation governments as political power brokers.
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The New World Inside A Basque Village
The Oiartzun Valley And Its Atlantic Emigrants, 1550-1800
Juan Javier Pescador
University of Nevada Press, 2003

An ethnohistory detailing the lives of fifteen generations in a Basque-speaking community in Spain and the result of their diverse contacts with the New World. The Basques’ remarkable role in the establishment and exploitation of Spain’s American empire is well known, but until now the impact of these achievements on the Basque Country itself has received little attention. In this pioneering study, Juan Javier Pescador meticulously examines three centuries of social and economic change in the Oiartzun Valley of Gipuzkoa, a typical Basque peasant community altered by its contacts with the New World.

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The Newspapers Of Nevada
A History And Bibliography, 1854-1979
Richard E. Lingenfelter
University of Nevada Press, 1984

This new bibliography of Nevada's newspapers supersedes and greatly expands on previous works. More than 800 publications are now included: traditional newspapers, penny shoppers, comic and campaign sheets, entertainment and matrimonial guides, and fictitious newspapers that had life only in the columns of other papers. Also included is a brief appendix of early newspapers from boarder states that reported regularly on Nevada. The authors have provided a brief historical sketch of each publication, together with a list and location of known copies of the original papers, plus current microfilm holdings. The bibliography also documents frequency of publication, proprietorship, title changes, printing locations, and political affiliation. This volume will be of value to historians ranging from scholars to genealogy buffs who need access to the information only newspapers can provide.

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No Charity in the Wilderness
Poems
Shaun T. Griffin
University of Nevada Press, 2024
No Charity in the Wilderness is a long journey into the new American West. From the southern border to the isolating two-lane highways in the desert, this collection is a prayer of reconciliation with so much that troubles us—those who live without resources or voices—and their possible future in this ever-changing landscape of desire.

Griffin has spent many decades in the high desert trying to find the way forward—when what he knows has been challenged and still there is breath on the horizon. One day an ancient Chinese poet comes to visit: "Snow deepens/ to quiet what I once believed, and Wang Wei stoops from the spine:/ this is how you become silence." Even if you doubt the old poet's counsel, like Griffin, you want to journey with him into the wilderness.  
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No Equal In The World
An Interpretation Of The Academic Presidency
Joseph N. Crowley
University of Nevada Press, 1994
No Equal in the World is a comprehensive study of the literature on the American academic presidency from the middle of the nineteenth century—when the first universities, as distinct from colleges, began to emerge—to the present. The book surveys widely divergent literature on the biographies of major presidents at crucial moments in the history of their institutions. The book affords an overview of the development of both the role of the university president and the public’s perception of that role, and indicates where perception and reality diverge. At a time when university presidents must find their way through a minefield of increasingly heated debates over issues such as free speech, curriculum, faculty diversity, and the specter of “political correctness,” Crowley’s book provides a sense of history to those striving to understand the demands of the position. It is an invaluable resource for scholars.
 
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No Place Like Home
Notes from a Western Life
Linda M. Hasselstrom
University of Nevada Press, 2010

In No Place Like Home, Linda Hasselstrom ponders the changing nature of community in the modern West, where old family ranches are being turned into subdivisions and historic towns are evolving into mean, congested cities. Her scrutiny, like her life, moves back and forth between her ranch on the South Dakota prairie and her house in an old neighborhood at the edge of downtown Cheyenne, Wyoming. The vignettes that form the foundation of her consideration are drawn from the communities she has known during her life in the West, reflecting on how they have grown, thrived, failed, and changed, and highlighting the people and decisions that shaped them. Hasselstrom’s ruminations are both intensely personal and universal. She laments the disappearance of the old prairie ranches and the rural sense of community and mutual responsibility that sustained them, but she also discovers that a spirit of community can be found in unlikely places and among unlikely people. The book defines her idea of how a true community should work, and the kind of place she wants to live in. Her voice is unique and honest, both compassionate and cranky, full of love for the harsh, hauntingly beautiful short-grass prairie that is her home, and rich in understanding of the intricacies of the natural world around her and the infinite potentials of human commitment, hope, and greed. For anyone curious about the state of the contemporary West, Hasselstrom offers a report from the front, where nature and human aspirations are often at odds, and where the concepts of community and mutual responsibility are being redefined.

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