Review of \u3ci\u3eThe Frontier Newspapers and the Coverage of the Plains Indian Wars\u3c/i\u3e by Hugh J. Reilly

As a community of scholars, we need to ask more from books like this. Despite a topic ripe with fruitful and compelling potential, Reilly\u27s approach to newspaper coverage of the Plains Indian Wars lacks rigor, nuance, and engagement with contemporary critical conversations. Reilly, a communications professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, discusses eight watershed events, from the Great Sioux Uprising in 1862 to the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1891. Newspapers throughout the United States, indeed the world, reported on these conflicts. The coverage that appeared in national publications, such as the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, is digitally archived and readily available on microfilm. Recognizing this, Reilly instead pays much needed attention to lesser known and, for many scholars, less accessible newspaper evidence from the region itself. The book includes numerous long block quotations, which are invaluable primary sources and worth our attention