The main battle in imperialism is over land, of course; but when it came to who owned the land, who had the right to settle and work it, who kept it going, who won it back, and who now plans its future-these issues were reflected, contested, and even for a time decided in narrative. The expansive region of the American Great Basin and its indigenous peoples hardly appear in most renditions of American history. Representing only a tiny fraction of the continent’s populace, the histories of the lands and peoples of this vast region remain largely excluded from the broader narratives of North American history. Unlike historians, anthropologists for the past century have maintained considerable interest in the Indians of the Great Basin. This paper examines the representations of Great Basin Indians by Julian Steward-the preeminent anthropologist of the region. Developing theories of cultural change that have influenced generations of anthropologists, Steward pioneered both the study of the Great Basin Indians as well as American anthropology with his ethnographic research of the 1930s.