Our Ability to See Places

In my mail appears a thoughtful gift, a book, inscribed to me by one of the authors: The Missouri: America’s Longest River, edited by Jon K. Lauck and published by the Center for Western Studies, Augustana University. The chapters are various, from native forests to Indian-White conflict to big dams and their consequences, so let me focus on some pieces, then try to say something about the whole. If that’s possible, because the more you read, the more you become conscious of our failure to comprehend, historically, the Missouri River as a whole.