Southwest Books of the Year
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- Anatomy of the Grand Canyon: Panoramas of the Canyon's Geology
- By W. Kenneth Hamblin Grand Canyon Association 143 pp. Index. $49.95
- Ancestral Landscapes of the Pueblo World
- By James E. Snead University of Arizona Press 208 pp. Index. . $45.00
- Ancestral Zuni Glaze-Decorated Pottery: Viewing Pueblo IV Regional Organization Through Ceramic Production and Exchange
- By Deborah L. Huntley University of Arizona Press 112 pp. Index. . $17.95
- Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau
- By Ronald C. Blakey, Wayne Ranney Grand Canyon Association 156 pp. Index. $34.95
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When we think of geologic time, the Grand Canyon’s slice of eons comes to mind. But this book takes the canyon’s history back into deep geology, back 1.75 billion years, when much of what we think of as North America was covered by ocean. This imaginative recreation is portrayed by photos, paintings, and charts, and backed by a sound understanding of plate tectonic geology. You don’t need much knowledge of geology to understand or appreciate this book, but you will need a limber mind to comprehend the scope of time and distance. Just when you think you’ve seen the canyon from every perspective, this one comes along with a new look. Very well done.
- Arab/American: Landscape, Culture, and Cuisine in Two Great Deserts
- By Gary Paul Nabhan University of Arizona Press 0 pp. Index. . $17.95
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In nine elegantly rendered essays, Nabhan ruminates on the ties - historical, personal, cultural, and environmental - that extend from his ancestral homeland in the Middle East to his adoptive home in the Sonoran Desert. And these connections are more concrete and meaningful than you might imagine. In a time of bitter conflict between the Arab and Western worlds, Nabhan makes a convincing argument for peace and environmental sanity based on shared kinship and landscape.
Possibly the Southwest’s most famous Arab-American is Hi Jolly, the camel driver hired by the US Army back in the 1850s. Know to others as Hadji Ali, he is honored with a monument at Quartzite, Arizona. But his story is only one of thousands where migrants from the Middle East venture to the new world, bringing customs, foods, words, and culture. They have been here so long and securely that we seldom stop to think about their arrival. Gary Paul Nabhan journeys to home to Syria and Oman to reconnect with his ancestors, and finds more links with the Southwest and the Middle East than he ever imagined. This revealing book is an enthusiastic reminder to rejoice in the family of man. Because of this book, we’ll need to refocus our perceptions of who we are. By coincidence, in the past few weeks I interviewed two friends from the small community of Ajo, Arizona. Their families came to America before 1900, one family from Turkey and one from Syria. Their names were Americanized and today their many friends and neighbors rarely stop to think that these second and third-generation Americans step out of Nabhan’s delightful book and into the American Dream.
- Aridland Springs in North America: Ecology and Conservation
- By Vicky J. Meretsky, Lawrence E. Stevens University of Arizona Press/Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum 432 pp. (Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Studies in Natural History). Foreword by Gary Paul Nabhan.. $75.00
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Few topics are more interesting than water in the desert. Of the seventeen chapters in this significant book, several focus on places in the Southwest. Dean Blinn details the dynamics of Montezuma’s Well in Arizona (ch 6), James Cornett provides deep insights into desert fan palm oases (ch 8), and Gary Nabhan explains plant diversity at the rich springs at Quitovac in Sonora (ch 12). And, of potentially long-lasting influence is the chapter proposing a spring classification system (ch 4). This book takes a proud place next to others in the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum series.
- At the Confluence of Change: A History of Tonto National Monument
- By Nancy Dallett Western National Parks Association 253 pp. Index. $21.95
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Tonto cliff dwelling was built by the ancient Salado people along the Salt River, east of the modern city of Phoenix, Arizona. The ruins are important for visualizing life back then, and this book is important for understanding and appreciating the struggles to preserve the dwelling and its artifacts. The book readably portrays at the larger picture of preservation policy and politics for other historic monuments in the Southwest. Many human stories add humor and interest to make this a lively tale. For example, while bathing in the open, one early superintendent had to keep an ear out for visitors approaching on the road below. Nicely done report on a fine national monument that opened in 1907.
The subtitle tell us this book is "A History of Tonto National Monument" and indeed it is, one to be applauded for its thorough and sometimes technical coverage, for its footnotes, bibliography, and index, not for its appeal to the general reader. In other words, a book for scholars and very serious students. The Tonto Basin of central Arizona is probably better known for Zane Grey's cabin than for its somewhat remote National Monument.
