From the tectonic formation of Oklahoma’s varied landscape to the recovery and renewal following the Oklahoma City bombing, this readable book includes both the well-known and the not-so-familiar of the state’s people, events, and places. W. David Baird and Danney Goble offer fresh perspectives on such widely recognized history makers as Sequoyah, the 1889 Land Run, and the Glenn Pool oil strike. But they also give due attention to Black Seminole John Horse, Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Coach Bertha Frank Teague’s 40-year winning streak with the Byng Lady Pirates, and other lesser-known but equally important milestones. The result is a rousing, often surprising, and ever-fascinating story.

Oklahoma history is an intricate tapestry of themes, stories, and perspectives, including those of the state’s diverse population of American Indians, the land’s original human occupants. An appendix provides suggestions for trips to Oklahoma’s historic places and for further reading. Enhanced by more than 40 illustrations, including 11 maps, this definitive history of the state ensures that experiences shared by Oklahomans of the past will be passed on to future generations.

After taking Davis D. Joyce’s course in Oklahoma history, a student once said, “I saw an Oklahoma I’d never seen before.”

“This is a splendid collection of writings in the true spirit of a ‘people’s history’. It begins with a delightful, wry overlook at Oklahoma by George Milburn, and goes on to tell about the state in way rarely seen in traditional histories. There are accounts of progressivism, of socialism, of labor radicalism, of Indian resistance, of black struggle against segregation, of women’s campaigns for abortion rights. It includes fascinating portraits of people, some famous, some obscure, who were engaged in these struggles. I hope this become a model for similar volumes on other states.”–Howard Zinn, author of People’s History of the United States.

Contents: “Oklahoma,” George Milburn; “The Difficulty of Celebrating an Invasion, “Jerald C. Walker;“Progressivism in Oklahoma Politics, 1900-1913: A Reinterpretation,” Kenny L. Brown;“Kate Barnard, Progressivism, and the West,” Suzanne J. Crawford and Lynn R. Musslewhite; “’In Death You Shall not Wear It Either’: The Persecution of Mennonite Pacifists in Oklahoma,” Marvin E. Kroeker;“She Never Weakened: The Heroism of Freda Ameringer,” John Thompson; “Wobblies in the Oilfields: The Suppression of the Industrial Workers of the World in Oklahoma,” Nigel sellars; “The Road Once Taken: Socialist Medicine in Southwestern Oklahoma,” Alana Hughes;  “Woody Guthrie: The Oklahoma Years, 1912-1929,” Harry Menig;  “The  New Deal Comes to Shawnee,” Dale E.Soden; “The Social Gospel of Nicholas Comfort,” Bob Cottrell; “Behold the Walls,” Clara Luper;  “The Case of  the Deerslayer,”  Stan Steiner; “Black Oklahoma and Sense of place ,” Jimmie L. Franklin; “The Southern Influence on Oklahoma ,” Danney Goble; “The Creation of an Oklahoma Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights: A Presonal/Historical Essay” Carole Jane Joyce; “Violence and Oppression of Women in Rural Oklahoma,”  Elizabeth D. Barlow; “Oklahoma’s Gay Liberation Movement,” Thomas E. Guild, Joan Luxenburg, and Keith Smith; “Even Among the Sooners, There Are More Important Things than Football,” Alan Ehrenhalt.

In revealing an Oklahoma many have never seen, this book can remind Oklahoma citizens of changes yet to be made, show how to mark them, and (perhaps most important of all) inspire them to do the job.

Sturken contends that a consumer culture of comfort objects such as World Trade Center snow globes, FDNY teddy bears, and Oklahoma City Memorial t-shirts and branded water, as well as reenactments of traumatic events in memorial and architectural designs, enables a national tendency to see U.S. culture as distant from both history and world politics. A kitsch comfort culture contributes to a “tourist” relationship to history: Americans can feel good about visiting and buying souvenirs at sites of national mourning without having to engage with the economic, social, and political causes of the violent events. While arguing for the importance of remembering tragic losses of life, Sturken is urging attention to a dangerous confluence—of memory, tourism, consumerism, paranoia, security, and kitsch—that promulgates fear to sell safety, offers prepackaged emotion at the expense of critical thought, contains alternative politics, and facilitates public acquiescence in the federal government’s repressive measures at home and its aggressive political and military policies abroad.