Among the most overlooked and underanalyzed stories of twentieth-century Native American history is energy development on reservations. Why? Is energy development unappealing because it is industrial, often ugly and dirty; takes place out of sight, in hidden, rural corners of Indian country; or leads to thorny issues of intratribal disputes that outsiders hesitate to probe or reveal? Or is it the fact that energy development involves a complex story of federal policy and corporate power, topics scholars have abandoned in recent years? Whatever the reason, after Marjane Ambler’s (1990) and Donald L. Fixico’s (1990) books, historians left the field fallow until recently. James Robert Allison III’s Sovereignty for Survival, Andrew Needham’s (2014) Power Lines, and a book I coedited, Indians and Energy (Smith and Frehner 2010) bring this subject to the fore and will, hopefully, spark fresh scholarly scrutiny on this...
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