On the Great Plains is a comprehensive agricultural and environmental history of the Great Plains region starting with the earliest settlements in the area, after the adoption of the Homestead Act of 1862, and ending at the conclusion of the twentieth century. As such, it differs from other socio-economic accounts of the region's history that largely focus on the experiences of farmers during initial settlements or after the devastating dust bowl of the 1930s. The book's main premise is that although human beings are not masters of nature and are bound by its forces, they are flexible and can adapt to face different environmental constraints so as to maintain stability in their agricultural system. This history of more than 130 years combines a wide-ranging dataset and case studies from diverse counties of the region. Agricultural censuses as well as detailed historical environmental data are used to tell a broad and extensive story. Case studies of actual homesteaders emphasize the stark differences in southern, central, and northern plains. This strategy of bringing together a comprehensive dataset with very specific tales from the region skillfully points out the similarities as well as differences in agricultural and environmental history of the 450 counties of the Great Plains.

The chapters of On the Great Plains are organized to advance three claims that Cunfer makes about the development of the region. First, the settlement into the plains and adaptation of land to farming happened quite rapidly between 1870 and 1920 even though environmental constraints differed widely within the region. Second, Geoff Cunfer argues that since the 1920s, the share of land in the region dedicated to farming remained stable. Third, while Cunfer concedes that changes did occur in the farming system during this period, he believes that all these changes were either temporary shocks to a stable system, such as the severe drought and the dust bowl of 1930s, or adaptations by the farmers to deal with these temporary shocks and to other problems faced. The examples of these adaptations include technological and chemical improvements such as the use of tractors and synthetic fertilizers. The utilization of underground water as irrigation where available, specifically the Ogallala Aquifer, is provided as another example of a land use adaptation. The chapters of the book are nicely organized to detail these three features of Great Plains agricultural history.

Whereas each chapter highlights a specific issue or problem in the region, the common theme in each section is the stability of land use in the Great Plains with a focus on crop acreage. Cunfer points out that only about one-third of the whole region was ever used as croplands and the majority of land in Great Plains never saw a plow, and most significantly, that this cropland ratio was quite stable since the 1920s. This thesis of cropland stability in the Great Plains, although accurate at one level, is based on a broad definition of “croplands” and ignores the details of changes in the land use within the croplands. Total crop acres, as defined by the author in the appendix, includes crop acres for the 19 most important crops of the region, failed crops as well as idle crop land and fallow crop acres (p. 252). This broad definition discounts the changes in cultivation practices of farmers after the dust bowl experience, in particular the increase of idle and fallow land as a share of cropland in the Great Plains over time. Because excessive cultivation of land, exposing dry soil to wind especially during severe droughts is the standard account for the dust bowl, the use of fallow as a wind erosion prevention method was encouraged by United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials. Moreover, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) provided subsidies to encourage farmers to leave a portion of their land idle or fallow for a variety of reasons including soil conservation practices and limiting crop overproduction in order to stabilize commodity markets. In addition to these factors, the gradual consolidation of farms after the dust bowl led to changes in cultivation practices that increased the fallow share in farms and better protected farmland from the droughts of the 1950s and 1970s (Hansen, Z., and G. Libecap. “Small Farms, Externalities, and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.” Journal of Political Economy 112, no. 3 [2004]: 665–94). Thus, fallow and idle crop lands increased over time although the total crop acres did not change significantly.

On the Great Plains is a nicely written historical account that combines a large dataset with regionally specific case studies of homesteaders and farmers. Scientific details such as the formation of the Ogallala Aquifer and the speed of nitrogen loss from soils are deftly interspersed throughout the book. The specifics of every issue discussed in the book are interesting and enlightening. Unfortunately, the book misses the point of the big picture it paints: that the stability of total crop acres does not necessarily tell the full story of the agricultural system in the Great Plains. The changes that did happen are obscured by the author's use of broad definitions.