In the early nineteenth century, the Upper Missouri tribes, including the Maha, Ponca, Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa, lived in a land of plenty. Great herds of bison roamed the northern plains, large schools of fish swam in the murky waters of the Missouri, and the grassland grew an abundance of wild fruits and vegetables. The tribes tapped all of these natural resources for food and fiber. And in order to supplement their diet of wild produce, they grew beans, squash, pumpkins, sunflowers, watermelons, and maize.
By practicing a mixed subsistence pattern of hunting and gathering, as well as agriculture, the tribes maintained a varied, healthy diet. Such a wide range of foods also protected the tribes against disaster.
The Loess Hills are the Missouri River turned inside out.
Frederick Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis contends that the frontier, and the territorial expansion that accompanied it, defined not only American history, but also American culture and the American character. Turner believed that the frontier had fostered innovation, democracy, pragmatism, a can-do spirit, and political moderation; and because of this, the frontier had made the Americans an exceptional people.
Although North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho signed the Paris Peace Accords in January, 1973, he and his colleagues on the North Vietnamese Politburo remained committed to toppling the Saigon regime. Evidence of Hanoi’s intentions toward South Vietnam were not hard to discern – they were easily visible across the South Vietnamese landscape. 
George Packer’s Our Man is occasionally insightful, at times gossipy, and nearly always disturbing.
