Backlist

Here you will find our comprehensive backlist of titles published at North Dakota State University Press.

Titles that are out of print have been noted.

Aristocrat of the West: The Story of Harold Schafer

Larry Woiwode

Growing from the bare prairie of western North Dakota, Schafer created an empire as familiar to Americans as the soap on their shelves, which probably was produced by his Gold Seal Company. As a philanthropist Schafer’s enthusiasm and optimism brought Theodore Roosevelt’s old cow town of Medora from ruin to a premier tourist attraction. A wonderful story of a great American grown from the western plains.

ISBN 0-911042-60-1

Second Edition

390 pages

Hardcover

$ 24.95

Beacon Across the Prairie

William A. Hunter

A complete history of North Dakota’s Land Grant College from its founding to 1960. Numerous photos are included.

ISBN 0-911042-05-9;

309 pages

Hardcover

$ 5.50 / Out of Print

Bitter Harvest; Gordon Kahl and the Posse Comitatus – Murder in the Heartland

James Corcoran

New Foreword by Mike Jacobs

James Corcoran tells the story of Gordon Kahl and the Posse Comitatus, using captivating narrative with vivid imagery. Sunday, February 13, 1983, was a sunny day in Medina, North Dakota–a seemingly peaceful church-going winter day. But hate politics was broiling in secret locations and the Heartland provided cover for those who wanted to take the law into their own hands. Ever a page-turner, reflect again on this story of violence and how a group of people can construct an alternative version of the law and the truth.

ISBN 0-911042-62-8

249 pages

Hardcover

$25.00

Quentin Burdick: The Gentle Warrior

Dan Rylance

The Gentle Warrior is an insightful and warm biography of the late Senator Quentin Burdick of North Dakota.

ISBN 978-0911042-68-9

380 pages

Hardcover

$28.95

The Coach and the College: The Role of Athletics in the Financial Survival of a Small Liberal Arts College

Robert D. Sawrey

Amidst the cheers, pride, tailgating and excitement of college athletics lurks for many Americans the discomforting sense that many colleges have abandoned their academic integrity and the proper relationship between academics and athletics. Located on the rolling farmland of North Dakota sits Jamestown College, whose experience with athletics offers a stunningly different perspective of how athletics and academics can work together to promote the general well-being of the institution.

ISBN 978-0-911042-77-01

200 pages

Softcover

Price: $20.00

Common Waters – A Story of Life Along the Red River of the North

Edited by Wayne Gudmundson.

Most recent of the “Prairie Document Series;” a photographic essay that demonstrates the power of the river and its influences on the lives of all living by its shores.

ISBN 0-911042-49-0

223 pages -184 photos

Softcover

Price $18.95

Conservation of Natural Resources of North Dakota

Irvin T. Dietrich and John Hove

An early monograph on a subject increasingly important to an ecology-conscious nation. This picture-studded text is accessible to high-school students.

ISBN 0-911042-06-7

Hardcover

327 pages

Price $3.00

A Considered View: The Photographs of Wayne Gudmundson

Edited by Lucy Flint

This publication documents nearly four decades of the North Dakota artist’s work. Gudmundson, whose heritage is Icelandic, has been photographing the American prairie plains since the late 1970s with the aim of recording the marks of human intervention in this often hostile yet sublimely beautiful land.

ISBN 978-0-911042-67-2

Hardcover

104 pages

Price: $29.95

Dakota Circle: Excursions on the True Plains

Tom Isern

This is a wry, sometimes humorous description of the people and things that make up the Great Plains. Includes the notorious “You Must be from N.D.” list of regional virtues and idiosyncrasies.

ISBN 0-911042-53-9

195 pages

Hardcover

$ 19.95

Dakota, Or What’s a Heaven For

Brenda K. Marshall

The lives and schemes of frontier politicians, Northern Pacific Railroad executives, bonanza farmers, and homesteaders converge in the story of Frances Houghton Bingham, who marries the son of a Red River Valley bonanza farmer in order to remain near her new husband’s sister. Emotionally complex, willful and resourceful, Frances is seduced by the myths of opportunity driving the settlement of Dakota Territory, and dares to dream of a new world in which to realize her unconventional desires. Providing a counterpoint to the dramatic risks taken by Frances is the generous voice of Kirsten Knudson, the daughter of Norwegian homesteaders. As Kirsten grows from a voluble girl to a formidable woman, her observations (equal parts absurdity and insight) reveal the heart of the novel.

Details about Dakota, Or What’s a Heaven For can be found at http://www.brendamarshallauthor.com

ISBN 978-0-911042-72-6

473 pages

Hardcover

$24.95

Dakota Territory

Howard Lamar

First published some four decades ago. This political history of the Dakotas at their infancy offers readers a powerful picture of the politicians who carved a government out of a frontier and turned it into not one, but two huge states.

ISBN 0-911042-47-4

302 pages

Hardcover

$ 25.00

Dacotah Territory: A 10 Year Anthology

Edited by Mark Vinz and Grayce Ray

A collection of poems originally published in Dacotah Territory Magazine.

ISBN 0-911042-26-1

147 pages

Softcover

$ 9.75

Darkhouse Spearfishing Across North America

Jay Leitch

An introduction to darkhouse spearfishing. This unique sport of the upper-midwest comes alive on the pages of Jay Leitch’s treatment of the topic.

ISBN 0-911042-56-3

163 pages

Softcover

Price $ 14.95 / Out of Print

Depression: Minnesota in the Thirties

D. Jerome Tweton

The story of a people’s struggle to hold on against the terrible economic adversity which struck in the 1930s. The book brings to life the economic chaos which confronted farmers, workers, businessmen, and bankers.

ISBN 0-911042-25-3

Softcover

88 pages – 44 full-page photos

Price $7.50

The Downstairs Tenant

Jamie Parsley

Jamie Parsley’s first book of short fiction contains 15 stories (and one play) of Dakota at mid-Twentieth Century, a time when morals, ideals and society in general were in flux. Capturing the Prairie Gothic” genre, these stories are, at turns, tender and haunting, mystical and stoically unflinching, furtive and emotionally raw, violent and humorous. The characters in them struggle with overwhelming loss, tenuous faith, persistent doubt, nagging obsessions, haunted affection and, of course, an unpredictable natural world in which they ultimately find themselves exposed and vulnerable.

ISBN 978-0-911042-80-1

Softcover

176 pages

Price: $15.00

Fargo, 1957

Jamie Parsley

In the early evening of Thursday, June 20, 1957, a tornado struck the city of Fargo, ND. This is the story of the resilience and fortitude of the people who survived the storm and those who did not.

ISBN 978-0-911042-73-3

Softcover

156 pages

Price: $20.00 / Out of Print

Five for the Land & Its People

Bill G. Reid

The story of five pioneering agri-scientists who devoted their considerable energies and abilities to the North Dakota Agricultural College and Experiment Station. The author’s portraits of each of the five men–Clare Bailey Waldron, Henry Luke Bolley, Edwin Fremont Ladd, John Henry Shepperd, and Lawrence Root Waldron–combine personal glimpses of the five with a narrative of their professional achievements and disappointments.

ISBN 0-911042-37-7

Hardcover. 154 pages

LC 88-61399

Price $12.00

Flowers Between the Frosts: How to Grow Great Gardens in Short Seasons

Dorothy Collins

Dorothy Collins produced about 2,800 gardening articles during a 55-year span as a journalist and editor working in the border cities of Fargo, ND and Moorhead, MN. She addressed the rewards and the challenges of gardening in a climate known for hot, dry summers and cold, windswept winters. This book features some of her best practical advice for gardeners challenged by the north country seasons, along with a few sprigs of Midwestern charm and whimsy.

ISBN 978-0-911042-7604

Softcover. 174 pages

LC 2012934871

Price: $14.95

From the Banat to North Dakota; A History of the German-Hungarian Pioneers in Western North Dakota

David Dreyer and Josette Hatter

From the Banat to North Dakota is the first collection of personal histories written by and about the North Dakota Banaters. The collection joins archival data about these pioneers with their individual stories; together they weave a poignant tale about ordinary people relying on their personal courage, community spirit and cultural heritage, to succeed in North Dakota.

ISBN: 978-0-911042-66-5

Softcover

LC 2006937410

Price: $19.95

Goodbye Mike, Hello Judge: My Journey for Justice

Myron H. Bright

At age 95, Federal Judge Myron Bright looks back on a life that leaves a legacy of not only fighting for justice, but advocating, often as a lone voice, against injustice. His legal and judicial work has been highlighted by his compassion for individuals who have been treated unfairly. His personal stories begin with growing up in a northern Minnesota ethnic melting pot. Myron Bright continues to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which has ruled on cases that touch some of the most significant issues in American history. Judge Bright has provided the heart for many of those rulings through is influence on the opinion-making process and speaking out with oral and written dissent.

ISBN: 978-0-911042-78-8

LC Number 2014955187

Hardcover

Price: $30.00 Out of Print

Greetings from North Dakota; An Address and Date Book

From the postcard collections of Lawrence Aasen and Ronald Olin

Historical information written by John Bye and John Hallberg

An address book that features historic North Dakota postcards and short historical notes regarding the towns that they represent. Greetings from North Dakota was compiled by the professionals of the Institute from the postcard collections of Lawrence Aasen and Ronald Olin. They are uniquely North Dakota.

ISBN-13: 978-0-911042-63-4

Softcover

Price: $13.95

Handbook of North Dakota Plants

O.A. Stevens

A comprehensive study of plants of North Dakota, illustrated and written in layman’s terms.

ISBN 0-911042-07-5

Hardcover. 330 pages

LC-63-14315

Price: $30.00 Out of Print

History of North Dakota

Elwyn B. Robinson

Robinson’s book has become one of America’s classic state histories. One of the state’s great professors and historians takes into account not only politics, but sociology, economics, ethnology, theology, nature studies, and geography to describe North Dakota to the world and to itself. Long out of print, this soft cover reissue includes a new preface by D. Jerome Tweton, examining the themes and the time of Robinson, and a new postscript by David B. Danbom, bringing the state’s history from the mid-1960s to the present. Also new in this edition are 41 photos and illustrations.

ISBN 0-911042-43-1

Softcover

610 pages

LC 95-068420

Price $25.00 Out of Print

Home River

Rodney Nelson

A work of fiction that captures the distinctive lilt of Norwegian-American dialect and the political and social atmosphere of the Red River Valley of the North in the Middle 1940s. The book helps us preserve our knowledge of the immigrant pioneering spirit.

ISBN 0-911042-28-8

Softcover

76 pages

LC 83-63482.

Price $4.85

I’m Thinking It Over

Jim Baccus

A collection of 80 “Spectator” columns from The Fargo Forum 1974-1984.

ISBN 0-911042-31-8

Softcover

213 pages

LC 85-61953

Price $8.95

Important Voices; North Dakota’s Women Elected State Officials Share Their Stories, 1893-2013

Susan E. Wefald

Only 17 women have been elected to statewide office in North Dakota in 125 years! Susan Wefald has pulled the stories of these fabulous women together into this one volume. IMPORTANT VOICES shares their triumphs and losses, their hopes and challenges. It shares what these North Dakota women have accomplished and the challenges still facing women who want to be elected to statewide office today. It is a “must read” for anyone who enjoys North Dakota history, real life politics, or learning how women for over one hundred years have served our state.

ISBN: 978-0-911042-79-5

357 pages

Softcover

$24.95

The Last Buffalo

Bruce Roseland

Contemporary poetry from the farms and ranches of the Dakotas. Striking insights into 21st Century rural life.

ISBN-10: 0-911042-64-4

ISBN-13: 978-0-911042-64-1

Softcover

101 pages

LC 2006924763

Price: $11.95

Magnificent Churches on the Prairie

J. Coomber and Sheldon Green

A story of pioneer optimism, abiding faith and people who longed for the kind of community they had left behind in Europe. At the turn of the century, Benedictine missionaries and homesteading immigrants still living in earthen dwellings collaborated to build awe-inspiring churches of stone and stained glass. Churches at Mandan, Devils Lake, Richardton, and Strasburg, ND and Hoven, SD are presented in detail. More than one hundred color photographs capture the magnificence of these five churches.

ISBN 0-911042-45-8

Softcover. 102 pages

Price $29.95

Mammals of North Dakota

Robert Seabloom

Contributions by John Hoganson and William Jensen

The first comprehensive work on the mammalian fauna of the state since Vernon Bailey’s early “Biological Survey of North Dakota” published in 1926. This book is intended to be used by students, professional biologists, and serious naturalists. Detailed accounts of each of the state’s 86 mammal species include common, scientific, and known Native American names, and sections on Species Description, Distribution, Habitat, Ecology and Behavior, Reproduction, Status and Conservation, and Selected References. Important introductory chapters deal with the mammalian biogeography of the state, the mammalian paleofauna of North Dakota (John Hoganson), and the principal habitats of North Dakota (Bill Jensen). Additional chapters deal with investigating mammals and taxonomic keys for species identification.

ISBN: 987-0-911042-74-0

Softcover

Color photos

Price: $36.00 / Out of Print

Nature of Eastern North Dakota: Pre-1880 Historical Ecology

Kieth Severson and Carolyn Hull Sieg

This book seeks to develop a deeper understanding of how the geologic setting of eastern North Dakota changed through time, how vegetative communities and associated wildlife responded, and how processes such as climate and fire fluctuated. The authors provide glimpses of natural communities of eastern North Dakota, beginning with the Precambrian Era, about 3.5 million years ago. They explore, in greater detail, how grasslands, herbivores, varying weather patterns, fire and indigenous people have interacted during the last 10,000 years, with most emphasis placed on the last 300 years.

ISBN: 978-0-911042-65-8

Softcover

LC Number 2006936780

Price: $21.95

Our Purpose is to Serve: The First Century of the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station

David B. Danbom

A lively and insightful account of the station’s advances in agricultural research.

ISBN 0-911042-38-5

Hardcover

225 pages

LC 89-63044

Price $24.00

Paintings in Taxicabs

Richard Lyons

A study of the characteristics of art consumers in North Dakota.

ISBN 0-911042-09-1

Softcover

160 pages

LC 64-64377

Price $3.00 / Out of Print

Palaces on the Prairie

Rod Evans

From the 1880s to the 1930s, at least 34 “prairie palaces” of one sort or another sprang up in at least 24 towns across the Midwest. Their themes ranged in scope from grasses to grains to minerals, but all sought the same goal – attention! Evans’ book attempts to tackle many unanswered questions surrounding the successes and failures of each palace and community.

ISBN: 978-0-911042-71-9

Hardcover

240 pages

LC 2009940379

Price $29.95

The Pearson Girls

Kathy L. Plotkin

The real-life story of five spunky, beautiful sisters born to the rigors of homesteading on the North Dakota prairie.

ISBN 0-911042-51-2

Softcover

260 pages

LC 98-66956

Price $16.95

Prairie Populist: The Life & Times of Usher L. Burdick

E.C. Blackorby

Usher L. Burdick was a powerful and colorful character in North Dakota’s political history. Blackorby has written a fascinating and valuable analysis of the forces at work in Usher Burdick’s public and private history.

ISBN 0-911042-57-1

Hardcover

393 pages

LC 2001097699

Price $28.95

A Prairie Prayer

Poems by Bruce Roseland

Illustrated by Marie Louise Tesch

A collection of poems that continue the ideas first introduced by South Dakotan Bruce Roseland in The Last Buffalo. Bruce’s poems are about surviving the (simple) country life in South Dakota.

ISBN 978-0-911042-70-2

Softcover

84 pages

LC 2008925298

Price: $11.95

The Promise of Water: The Garrison Diversion Project

Wayne Gudmundson and Robert Silberman

The Garrison Diversion Project has been a controversial political issue in North Dakota for decades. More than half a billion dollars already have been spent, and a comparable amount is being sought to bring the project to completion. The landscape has been transformed by pumping stations and other large-scale waterworks, along with more than one hundred twenty miles of canals.

ISBN 0-911042-58-X (softcover)

ISBN 0-911042-59-8 (hardcover)

LCCN# 2002107054

Price: $12.95 softcover

Price: $19.95 hardcover

Scanning the Land

Richard Lyons

A series of poems about North Dakota illustrated with photographs to firmly place the reader in North Dakota.

ISBN 0-911042-23-7

Hardcover

157 pages

Price $11.75 / Out of Print

Science and Policy: Interbasin Water Transfer of Aquatic Biota

Jay Leitch

This book offers a history of the Garrison Diversion Conservancy District and the role of science, in what was largely a politically based problem.

ISBN 0-911042-54-7

Softcover

145 pages

Price $19.95

Spectacular North Dakota Hikes, Bring the Dog

Susan Wefald

Two of North Dakota’s most avid hikers, Susan Wefald and her dog Sandy, share their notes on 50 of North Dakota’s best day hikes. Armchair and seasoned hikers alike will enjoy exploring North Dakota’s diverse landscape with Susan and Sandy. Learn the locations of spectacular vistas. Try one of Susan’s picnic lunches. Expand neighborhood strolls into the great outdoors. Bring your dog!

ISBN 978-0-911042-75-7

Softcover

168 pages

Price: $24.95

The Third Rib Knife

Philip Kienholz

A collection of 17 poems.

ISBN 0-911042-12-1

Softcover

32 pages

Price $1.50 / Out of Print

Tori and the Sleigh of Midnight Blue

Margo Sorenson

A work of fiction for young readers. Set in North Dakota in the 1930s, its protagonist is a Norwegian farm girl, Tori, whose mother is a widow. When a Norwegian bachelor-farmer begins courting Mama, Tori writes in her journal that her life is about to be ruined.

ISBN: 0-911042-61-X

Softcover

121 pages

Price: $6.95

Unwanted Bread: The Challenge of Farming and Ranching

Sheldon Green and Jim Coomber

Farmers talk of their frustrations and opportunities in this personal glimpse into rural life today. Readers will discover insights into the expensive, complicated and often emotional business of farming and ranching. “One way to understand what is happening in farming today is to listen to those who are involved in it,” write Green and Coomber. That is what they do, and invite their readers to do, in Unwanted Bread. Here is the story of farming and ranching today as told by farmers and ranchers, along with astute commentators who know the country well. Visually striking, thought-provoking photographs accompany the interviews and essays. “If we could sit down with a farmer over coffee and listen to his or her story,” Green and Coomber say, “we’d begin to understand the challenge farmers are facing today.” So pour yourself some coffee, and help yourself to Unwanted Bread.

ISBN 0-911042-55-5

Softcover

160 pages-over 70 color photos

Price $ 24.95

Voices on the Prairie: Bringing Speech and Theatre to North Dakota

Robert S. Littlefield

A powerful testament to one of the most important cultural tools drawing North Dakotans together into one community: the spoken word. In this vast prairie of immigrants huddled into villages and farms many miles apart, settlers and their children relied on speeches, on pageants and drama, on forensics and declamation to build a sense of commuity, a unique cultural heritage in one of America’s last frontiers.

ISBN 0-911042-50-4

341 pages

Softcover – $ 29.95

Hardcover – $ 45.00 / Out of Print

Wall of Flames: The Minnesota Forest Fire of 1894

Lawrence Larsen

The story of the Hinckley, Minnesota forest fire shows the impact of the catastrophe on victims, survivors, rescuers, and policy makers. Sheds light on the reasons why such tragedies happened all too frequently in the United States of the Gilded Age and helps us to understand the origins of the Minnesota conservation movement.

ISBN 0-911042-29-6

Hardcover. 187 pages

LC 84-61133

Price $9.85 / Out of Print

Where Seldom Was Heard a Discouraging Word…Bill Guy Remembers

William L. Guy

The autobiography of Bill Guy, Governor of North Dakota from 1961 to 1973. Governor Guy captures the events and personalities of politics in North Dakota and the nation.

ISBN 0-911-042-42-3

Hardcover

275 pages

LC 92-6056

Price $25.00 / Out of Print

“You Have Been Kind Enough to Assist Me”: Herman Stern and the Jewish Refugee Crisis

Terry Shoptaugh

The story about how one man managed to pluck more than a hundred German Jews away from the clutches of the Nazis. Close to one hundred thousand European Jews found refuge in the United States before the onset of the Second World War. This story is about how one man living in a small town in North Dakota, by dint of his energy, determination, refusal to be discouraged, help at critical moments (for he well knew that he could never have succeeded as he did without the help of a special friend in Washington), he managed to pluck more than a hundred German Jews away from the clutches of the Nazis. It was a remarkable achievement. Then when, after the Holocaust, historians argued, with justice, that America could have done more, this man was content to express his gratitude that with help he was able to do something.

ISBN 978-0-911042-69-6

Hardcover

375 pages

LC 2007937543

Price: $24.95 / Out of Print / Available as Kindle