296 bility for radiation damage to military personnel as compared to the rest of the population. T h e government has been much more willing to accept or concede liability to civilians than to military personnel. An exception to this greater willingness was governmental treatment of the inhabitants of Bikini and Eniwetok. Damages to these people were given even less consideration than those to service personnel. The author gives much attention to the bomb testing area in Nevada and the health problems as well as the economic changes and benefits accruing to it and to areas of Utah that were also greatly affected. She points out that attitudes in the area as expressed in Las Vegas and Salt Lake City newsp a p e r s , b y r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s in Congress, and by other expressers of public opinion were strongly supportive of the testing programs and little concerned about the dangers from them in the 1940s, the 1950s, and through much of the 1960s. These states supported testing programs much more strongly, and paid less attention to people who raised questions about dangers from testing, than did the nation as a whole.
Utah Historical Quarterly T h e author's attention to the major concerns and attitudes of this geographical area may cause her to underemphasize one subject that some readers may expect to be treated more fully. There are enough references to nonmilitary uses of atomic power and the impact of safety concerns and regulation of nuclear power in producing electricity that these themes seem to be ready for full consideration. However, they do not receive it in the book. More completely than many books written for dual audiences, this one has much value for both. For the general reader it meets its stated purpose of providing adequate material on its subject. It may not be extreme enough in statement and in posture to become a bible for antinuclear activists, but it is a good book and one with special value to a public in the Nevada-Utah testing area. For the experts, some may be suspicious of the number of value-laden phrases that creep into the text, but it does set forth our government's policies and changes in policies in ways that will be useful to specialists working in many related areas. W.
D. AESCHBACHER
University of Cincinnati
Paper Medicine Man: John Gregory Bourke and His A merican West. By JOSEPH C . (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986. xx + 362 pp. $29.95.) The post-Civil W a r conquest of Native Americans living on the Great Plains and the high deserts of the West has been the topic of numerous tomes, some factual, many culturally biased, others highly romanticized. The adventures of saddle-sore, bone-weary cavalrymen, mule-mounted and footblistered infantrymen defending "civilization" as it flowed across the West is identified worldwide as an American saga. T h e stereotypes of courageous soldiers and treacherous
PORTER .
natives have recently been seriously challenged. Interestingly enough, the primary source material for these challenges was often gathered by soldiers and government agents directly involved in "civilizing" Indians on reservations. Paper Medicine Man is the military biography of Capt. J o h n Gregory Bourke, Third U . S . Cavalry. T h e work is more than a biography, however. J o s e p h C. Porter uses Bourke's life as a vehicle to explain
