"This book is a short treatment of a long history. Nebraska has been inundated by ancient seas, carved by glaciers, and settled by ancient cultures who learned to survive in a land prone to extremes of climates. As a state, Nebraska was born out of the Civil War, shaped by railroads, and built by immigrants. Settlers were drawn by promises of free land and abundant rain. They endured droughts and economic depressions. They fought for political reforms, fought world wars, and sometimes fought each other. Along the way, Nebraskans chose a unique form of government and re-invented their communities under new conditions. A Brief History of Nebraska is a story of continual change, the back store of the place and people we know today"--The back cover.

Stories of the heartland by the National Book Award finalist and author of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. “Nebraska captures a rowdy, changing America. Written with wit and brawny lyricism, in voices ranging from hip to tender, the stories gathered here are as diverse and expansive as the country they celebrate…References to America’s heartland abound throughout the book and serve as a central metaphor for what’s close to American hearts, what connects us: dreams, myths and possibilities as vast as the Great Plains. Wise and smart-alecky, creaking with legend and crackling with modernisms, these tales are about American obsessions past and present.” –The Washington Post Book World “Just as Raymond Carver came to be identified with a Pacific Northwest populated by blue-collar workers, and just as Richard Ford has crafted a Montana full of drifters, so Ron Hansen has carved out his own geographical niche. His Nebraska is a distinctive mix of 19th century settlers and 1980s breadwinners, of sudden storms and life-long yearnings, of lost souls stranded in the middle of nowhere.” –USA Today “Beautifully crafted stories… Wickedness, evil, malice is called by name; and for Hansen’s people the snake in the garden never fails to appear.” —The New York Times “Breathtaking virtuosity…These short narratives are utterly clean and smooth; they click together like a collection of river-washed stones that are each remarkably different yet polished by the same hand.”—Publishers Weekly

In 1916, this Book of Nebraska Pioneer Reminiscences was issued by the Daughters of the American Revolution of Nebraska, and "dedicated to the daring, courageous, and intrepid men and women--the advance guard of our progress--who, carrying the torch of civilization, had a vision of the possibilities which now have become realities.To those who answered the call of the unknown we owe the duty of preserving the record of their adventures upon the vast prairies of 'Nebraska the Mother of States. "Reminiscence, recollection, personal experience--simple, true stories--this is the foundation of History. Rapidly the pioneer story-tellers are passing beyond recall, and the real story of the beginning of our great commonwealth must be told now. The memories of those pioneers, of their deeds of self-sacrifice and devotion, of their ideals which are our inheritance, will inculcate patriotism in the children of the future; for they should realize the courage that subdued the wilderness. And "lest we forget," the heritage of this past is a sacred trust to the Daughters of the American Revolution of Nebraska."True Stories of Nebraska Pioneers: Illustrated and Annotated is a book of selections from COLLECTION OF NEBRASKA PIONEER REMINISCENCES, updated with photographs, biographies, and obituaries of many of the pioneers, and published by Knowledge Keepers. It is our desire to bring back to print as many works of our original history as possible into American homes for the preservation of the stories of our ancestors.