"Prairie Dreams" is an environmental history of the Great Plains, a history of the interaction between European culture and the North American grasslands. It argues that the stories of man and nature on the Plains are inextricably linked and that the development of a more ethical, conservation-focused future for the region must draw on a more complete and connected understanding of both its human and natural history. This history, though, is not just a story of physical change, of ranching, settlement, landscape transformation and wildlife extinction. It is also the story of our values, morals and ideology, of our mental relationship with the natural world, of how we imagine and understand a land and how it is shaped by our cultures and traditions. The Great Plains have been, and remain, a place for projecting our dreams and for discovering ourselves, who we are and what we value most. Their history is an inescapable parable of our relationship with the land.