The Hunting of the Buffalo, originally published in 1929, tells all about the marvelous and useful animal that once roamed the American plains. Its gradual extermination is chronicled by E. Douglas Branch, who drew on rich materials, including Indian legends, old letters and diaries, and tales of frontier travelers. No one has ever written more memorably about the great herds, their habits and haunts, their importance to the Indians, their discovery by awed whites, their decimation by huge cultural and economic forces.

E. Douglas Branch (1905–1954) is also the author of The Cowboy and His Interpreters.

 

His mentor, J. Frank Dobie, is the author of many books, including The Voice of the Coyote (available as a Bison Book).

 

New to this edition is an introduction by Andrew C. Isenberg, an assistant professor of history at Princeton University who is writing a book-length study of the bison.

"The best and most complete account of the whole melancholy business that has been written. A careful piece of work well documented and . . . temperately presented."—London Times Literary Supplement

"Told in a lively and readable style, with many anecdotes and graphic descriptions and an admirable sense of the underlying drama."—New York Times

"Excellent story of the . . . extermination of the free-roaming herds in less than three decades . . . [no other book] approaches this one in its selection of outstanding events in the march of history."—Utah Historical Quarterly

"Beautifully written."—Kansas City Star