  The majority of Neihardt’s writing was poetry published after the publication of Black Elk Speaks (nde.  Black Elk Speaks would become the most widely read work written by Neihardt, but only many years after its original publication.  John Neihardt would become Poet Laureate of Nebraska and the Praries in 1921 (Nebraska Historical) and hold the title until his death in 1973 (nde.state.ne.us.).  While John Neihardt was not a journalist or historian, his interest in the Great Plains and interviews with Black Elk produced a work which should be considered scholastic and historical and stands as the de facto story of Black Elk. 
	This must be contrasted, along with other factors, to how Julian Rice wrote Black Elk’s Story.  By virtue of age Rice was not able to have the same access to Black Elk that Neihardt had as he was only ten years of age when Black Elk passed away.  Julian Rice takes a much different spin on the life of Black Elk, and focuses much more on being a holy man than on Black Elk’s life as a whole.  Much like Neihardt, Rice has a background in literature and was a professor of English as Florida Atlantic University.  From looking at other works written by Rice, it is obvious he has his own interest on the Sioux and especially on Sioux spirituality and other anthropological studies of Sioux culture.  This interest can be noticed in Black Elk’s Story as the book explains the visions of Black Elk in great detail as the author challenges the means by which John Neihardt has transcribed the account from his interview with Black Elk.  
	Early on in Black Elk’s Story Julian Rice speaks of other biographies of Black Elk and seemingly explains the need he felt to write his book and denigrates Black Elk Speaks as a book that should “be relegated to the ranks of nineteenth century curios, reflecting white misconceptions of Indians” (Rice 14).  From this early tone, the entire purpose of this book appears not only to convey the story of Black Elk but to attack Neihardt’s Black Elk Speaks by focusing a major portion of his writing for the first few chapters against John Neihardt.  Rice attacks Neihardt by calling his philosophy on life “part of that Euro-American arrogance that has infected even literary giants from Mark Twain […] to T.S. Elliot” (Rice 17).  Rice continues by saying that “Neihardt’s social attitudes are conventionally assimilationist” (Rice 19).  
While it is obvious that Rice has vested a good amount of time and energy into studying the background of both Black Elk and John Neihardt, Rice places the weight in his argument more on attacking Neihardt as an individual and fails to discuss how what he describes as the purported racism of Neihardt was the general mindset of Americans in the early part of the 20th Century. 