Research Of Walter Prescott Webb’s Western Historiography Thought

Walter Prescott Webb is a distinguished American western historian. The GreatPlains is the quintessence of his western historiography thought. He determined thewestern region of United States as a specific geographical area, concerned the interactionbetween the western environment and eastern migration, explored an important impact ofthe great plains on the American West culture from the microscopic point of view.The dissertation consists of the following three parts: Introduction, Body andConclusion.The introduction is an overview of the academic achievements of Webb and thesignificance of the present study, followed by a literary review of the related researchhome and abroad.The body has three parts. Chapter one introduces the backgrounds of the formationof Webb’s western history research, it identifies the following sources of influence in theforming of Webb’s thought: the early Western life and “environmental determinism”, toexplore the root of his western historiography thought from social background andacademic background.Chapter two is main contents of Webb’s western historiography thought. Thissection describes the three aspects. Firstly, the location of the United States western;Secondly, the impact of the western environment on the human; The third is the humanreaction to the western environment, in order to analyzed the close relationship betweenthe westward migration and western environment. In this section will introduce thegeographical research methods of the western region determine, how difficulties theimmigrants living on the great plains, how immigrants adapted and transformed the greatplains.Chapter three based on the analysis before, combined with a lot of book reviews andreviews by domestic and foreign scholars, to comment on the value and impact ofWebb’s historiography thought, affirm the influence of the western historiographythought played the role of nexus, as well as reference to the Region History, NewWestern History and Environmental History of the United States.The conclusion part briefly describes The Great Plains deficiencies in the use of historical data and research methods, at last, this paper gives out some Webb’s thoughtsabout the Western is part of the legacy of Eastern according to the analysis and resultsabove.