The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 104, July 2000 - April, 2001 Page: 474

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

A comprehensive index cross-lists the various types and brands of windmills, as
well as other major subject and person entries.
This guide also holds much value to professionals outside the windmill trade.
First, it brings attention to trade literature and the value it holds as primary
source material for historians and researchers. General and specialized collec-
tions are found throughout the country, from the Higgins Agricultural History
Collection at the University of California, Davis, to the numerous business
archives at the Hagley Museum in Delaware, to smaller literature and business
collections at most major Texas universities, archives, and museums. Second,
Baker provides and ideal model for future specialized works listing trade litera-
ture of particular companies or areas of interest. Most historians feel fortunate
to find such a guide for any one collection in an archive or museum. Baker
opens the possibility for-and encourages-other career researchers to compile
and publish guides on their research topics that will allow their efforts to benefit
future researchers.
This volume is a valuable addition to technical literature and will be welcomed
by libraries, museums, and anyone interested in the history of windmills.
New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum CAMERON L. SAFFELL
Prehistoric Warfare in the American Southwest. By Steven A. LeBlanc. (Salt Lake City:
University of Utah Press, 1999. Pp. i+400. Figures, tables, preface, introduc-
tion. ISBN 0-87480-581-3. $34.95, cloth.)
In recent decades, a flood of revisionist history has challenged traditional
views of the relationship between Native Americans and European colonial pow-
ers, exposing in often graphic detail the violence perpetrated on Indians at the
hands of Euro-Americans. But seldom have these revisionist scholars peered into
the violent world that existed in North America prior to the arrival of
Europeans. Modern historians of Native America, increasingly drawing on
anthropological and archaeological sources in their research, have largely fol-
lowed the tendency of anthropologists to have a somewhat Rousseauian view of
prehistoric Indians as noble savages who rarely engaged in serious warfare.
Archaeologist Steven A. Le Blanc offers historians a new perspective. Using the
desert Southwest as a testing ground, he asserts that precolonial warfare in the
region was neither infrequent nor insignificant.
LeBlanc begins this well-researched volume by meticulously detailing the prin-
cipal forms of evidence relating to prehistoric warfare. These include settlement
configuration, the location of burned sites, architectural analysis, and the exca-
vation of human remains, weapons, and other artifacts. In addition to this exten-
sive archaeological evidence, LeBlanc also draws on the sources of other disci-
plines, including ethnographies, oral traditions, and historical documentation.
According to LeBlanc, evidence of prehistoric warfare has traditionally been
ignored, misinterpreted, or dismissed. He asserts that while individually each
piece of evidence can be disputed, collectively they provide a compelling case
for significant prehistoric warfare.

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