Review of Three Nations, One Place: A Comparative Ethnohistory of Social Change Among the Comanches and Hasinais During Spain's Colonial Era, 1689- 1821 by Martha McCollough

Authors

Maria Wade, University of Texas at Austin

Date of this Version

Fall 2005

Comments

Published in Great Plains Research 15:2 (Fall 2005). Copyright © 2005 The Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Used by permission.

Abstract

Few works on the Southern Plains have taken a decisively theoretical approach to the understanding of the relationships between the European colonizing nations and Native American groups and the mutual effects of contact. Building on previous scholarly works, this book provides a good synthetic and analytic review of the theoretical approaches and models previously applied to Plains studies, but furthers the discourse by zooming in on the Hasinai and the Comanche. Although this is problematic because neither the Comanche nor certainly the "Hasinai" groups can be treated wholesale or in terms of their long-term trajectories, McCollough's use of World Systems Theory coupled with regional and local analyses, as well as social history theories, enhances our understanding of the forces at work and the strategies adopted by these groups, sensu lata, to deal with, manipulate, and profit from the colonial encounter.