Book Review
More Than Ok on Oklahoma

More Than Ok on Oklahoma

This history text about the people and events of Oklahoma’s past is a lively, politically incorrect, and accurate telling — covering killing, corruption, and “causes.” ...
Steve Byas

The Oklahomans: The Story of Oklahoma and Its People, Volume I: Ancient-Statehood, by John J. Dwyer, Norman, Oklahoma: Red River, 2016, 324 pages, hardcover.

Perhaps no state has a more interesting and diverse history than does Oklahoma, and John Dwyer has expertly conveyed this fact in the first volume of an envisioned two-volume work on the “Sooner State.” To be blunt, in the past many authors of survey histories of the state have produced books on Oklahoma history that are about as dry as the dust from the multiple cattle drives that crossed the state in the last part of the 19th century. These writers have at times appeared almost disinterested in their subject, and have presented the material in an almost condescending, even apologetic manner.

You don’t get that from Dwyer. Instead, one can quickly discern that he is devoted to his home state. At the same time, the book does not avoid those parts of Oklahoma’s checkered history that are a vivid testimony to the flawed nature of human beings. Instead, he tackles such topics in a way that provides the perspective that is usually missing from other treatments of difficult topics, such as segregation, the Indian removals, corruption in government, and private-sector injustices.

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