This book defines prairies, or grasslands, discusses the role of grasslands in the global ecosystem, and explains the importance of protecting the grasslands through soil conservation methods and controlled grazing.

"The Destruction of the Bison explains the decline of the North American bison population from an estimated 30 million in 1800 to fewer than 1000 a century later. In this wide-ranging, interdisciplinary study, Andrew C. Isenberg argues that the cultural and ecological encounter between Native Americans and Euroamericans in the Great Plains was the central cause of the near-extinction of the bison. Cultural and ecological interactions created new types...

Tells the story of one of the world's great ecosystems and its transformation from natural landscape to farmland. The tallgrass prairie was once a prominent feature of the North American continent that was reduced, in less than a century, to the vanishing point.