The long-intertwined communities of the Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation and the bordering towns in Sheridan County, Nebraska, mark their histories in sensational incidents and quiet human connections, many recorded in detail here for the first time. After covering racial unrest in the remote northwest corner of his home state of Nebraska in 1999, journalist Stew Magnuson returned four years later to consider the larger questions of its peoples, their paths, and the forces that separate them. Examining Raymond Yellow Thunder s death at the hands of four white men in 1972, Magnuson looks...

After covering racial unrest in the remote northwest corner of his home state of Nebraska in 1999, journalist Stew Magnuson returned four years later to consider the border towns' peoples, their paths, and the forces that separate them. Examining Raymond Yellow Thunder's death at the hands of four white men in 1972, Magnuson looks deep into the past that gave rise to the tragedy. Situating long-ranging repercussions within 130 years of context, he also recounts the largely forgotten struggles of American Indian Movement activist Bob Yellow Bird and tells the story of Whiteclay, Nebraska, the...

On the night of Feb. 27, 1973, beat-up cars carrying dozens of angry young men sped into Wounded Knee village. Members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and local Lakotas had come to occupy the symbolic site on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where the army had massacred Chief Big Foot and his people in 1890. They would hold out against the firepower of the U.S. government for 71 days. By the time the occupiers left, the village had been destroyed, two were dead, one activist went missing, and a U.S. marshal was left paralyzed. Thirty-nine years later, key figures from the movement, Russell...

Descending 1,885 miles straight down the center of the United States from Westhope, North Dakota, to Brownsville, Texas, is U.S. 83, one of the oldest and longest of the federal highways that hasn't been replaced by an Interstate. Award-winning author Stew Magnuson takes readers on a trip down the road and through the history of the Northern Great Plains. The famous and the forgotten are found in stories he discovers in the Dakotas. Explorers Pierre de la Verendrye, Lewis & Clark, Jedediah Smith, are all encountered along with Chief Spotted Tail of the Brule Lakotas, TV sensation Lawrence...

Tamara Duffy spots her former boyfriend on the steps leading down to a crowded Tokyo subway station. The 29-year-old American follows him into a train packed with morning commuters. Aum Shinrikyo member Siha walks down the steps of the station wearing a surgical mask and gloves, carrying a clear plastic umbrella in one hand and two bags of nerve gas in the other. Inspector Shin Nomura, sitting at his desk at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, knows something bad is about to happen, but is powerless to stop it. It's March 20, 1995, and their lives are about to change forever.