Personal Summary

Dan Flores held the A. B. Hammond Chair in Western History at the University of Montana from 1992 to 2014. His specialty is the environmental and cultural history of the American West. He is the author of eleven books, most recently Wild New World (2022), Coyote America (2016), and American Serengeti (2016). His essays on the environment, art, and culture of the West also appear in magazines such as Texas Monthly, Orion, Southwest Art, The Big Sky Journal, and High Country News. His work has been honored by the Western History Association, the Western Writers of America, the Denver Public Library, the National Cowboy Museum, the Oklahoma Book Awards, the University of Oklahoma Press, the Montana Historical Society, the Texas State Historical Association, the High Plains Book Awards, and the Montana Book Awards. 

Field of Study

American West, U.S. Environmental History, and Native American History

Selected Publications

Wild New World: The Epic Story of Animals and People in America (Norton, 2022)

Coyote America: A Natural & Supernatural History (Basic, 2016)

American Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains (Kansas, 2016)

Visions of the Big Sky: Painting and Photography in the Northern Rocky Mountain West  (University of Oklahoma Press, 2010)

The Natural West: Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001; paperback edition, 2003)

Southern Counterpart to Lewis & Clark: The Freeman & Custis Expedition of 1806 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, Red River Books paperback, 2nd edition, 2002)

Horizontal Yellow: Nature and History in the Near Southwest (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999; paperback edition, 1999)

The Mississippi Kite: Portrait of a Southern Hawk, with Eric Bolen  (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993)               

Caprock Canyonlands: Journeys into the Heart of the Southern Plains (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1990; paperback edition, 1997)

Canyon Visions: Photographs and Pastels of the Texas Plains, with Amy Winton, Foreword by Larry McMurtry  (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1989; paperback edition, 1989)

Journal of an Indian Trader: Anthony Glass and the Texas Trading Frontier, 1790-1810 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1985; paperback edition, 1998)

Jefferson & Southwestern Exploration (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984; paperback edition, 1986)

Publications

“Bringing Home All The Pretty Horses: The Horse Trade in the Early American West, 1785 - 1825,” Montana, the Magazine of Western History 58 (Summer 2008): 3-21, 94-6.

“Land That I Love,” Texas Monthly 35 (July 2007): 74-80.

“Wars Over Buffalo: Stories versus Stories on the Northern Plains,” in Michael Harkin and David Rich Lewis, eds., Native Americans and the Environment: Perspectives on the Ecological Indian (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007): 153-70.

“Jefferson’s Grand Expedition and the Mystery of the Red River,” in Patrick Williams, et al., eds., A Whole Country in Commotion: The Louisiana Purchase and the American Southwest (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2005): 21-39.

“Societies to Match the Scenery: Twentieth-Century Environmental History in the American West,” in A Companion to The American West, William Deverell, ed. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2004): 256-71.

“Der Wirkliche Llano Estacado,” in Karl May im Llano Estacado, Meredith McClain and Reinhold Wolff, eds. (Hansa Verlag, 2004): 61-71.

“A Prairie Story: How the Plains Indians Lost Their Empire (and Their Homes) in Texas,” In Donald Willett and Stephen Curley, Invisible Texans: Women and Minorities in Texas History (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004): 106-117.

“Loving the Plains, Hating the Plains, Saving the Plains,” in The Past and Future of the Southern High Plains, Sherry Smith, ed. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003): 219-244.

“Reinventing the World at the Head of the Columbia, in The River We Carry With Us: Two Centuries of Writing from the Clark Fork Basin, Tracy Stone-Manning and Emily Miller, eds.  (Livingston, Mt.: Clark City Press, 2002): 175-84.

“Poetry to Trespass For,” in The Waltz He Was Born To: An Introduction to the Writing of Walt McDonald, Janice Whittington and Andrew Hudgins, eds. (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002): 111-21.

“Bison Ecology and Bison Diplomacy Redux: Another Look at the Southern Plains from 1800 to 1850,” in American Environmental History, Louis Warren, ed. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2003): 160-75.

"A Very Different Story: Exploring the Southwest from Monticello With the Freeman and Custis Expedition of 1806," Montana, the Magazine of Western History 50 (Spring 2000): 2-17.

"Nature's Children: Environmental History as Human Natural History," in Andrew Kirk and John Herron, eds., Human Nature: Biology, Culture, and Environmental History (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999): 11-30.

"Essay: The Great Plains ‘Wilderness’ as a Human-Shaped Environment,” Great Plains Research 9 (Fall 1999): 343-55.

"Place: Thinking About Bioregional History," in Michael McGinnis, ed., Bioregionalism (London: Routledge Press, 1998): 43-58.

"Making the West Whole Again: A Historical View of Restoration," in  Bob Keiter, ed., The Native Home of Hope: Community, Ecology, and the American West (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1998): 58-68.

"Environmentalism and Multiculturalism in Western History," in Hal Rothman, ed., Reopening the American West (Phoenix: University of Arizona Press, 1998): 24-37.

"Spirit of Place in the American West," in James Sherow, ed., A Sense of the American West: An Environmental History Anthology (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998): 31-8.