As a child I once saw some bison at Yellowstone National park, since then I’ve thought they’re pretty cool animals and everything I’ve learned about them since has only reinforced that impression. Impressive singly or in herds, these animals seem to radiate a stoic, understated kind of strength. Although they only eat grass, everything about their anatomy and physique screams, “don’t f*ck with me”.

This book tells the story of the American Bison’s long and often fraught history with that most dangerous of American land mammals, humans. After thousands of years of evolving to perfectly suit their grassland habitat, Bison have had to deal with a lot. Extreme weather conditions, grazing pressure from recently reintroduced horses, and human predation. But all of these challenges were just a slight chill in the breeze compared to near extinction level extermination by White, manifest destiny minded settlers. The bulk of this volume is concerned with that particular story and the American Bison’s resurgence thanks to widespread conservation efforts, often from disparate quarters. The writing is capable and stays on topic, never straying too far from its brief but rife with enough detail to immerse the reader. The illustrations and maps also give scale and context for this period in history. If nothing else this book will pique reader’s interest, probably to watch the Ken Burns documentary of the same name, as intended, but also to learn more in general about America’s national mammal.

Settlers saw the Bison and immediately recognized it as an iconic national emblem, but then they shot them within a shaggy hair’s breadth of extinction, all for profit, only reigning themselves in at the last possible moment. And what could be more American than that?