Books
Southwest Books of the Year
- Complete List
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Browsing All Nonfiction Books - H :
Clicking on a book cover will search for the book in the catalog. If it is not part of our collection, you may request it by clicking on the Can't Find It link. An icon indicates if the book is chosen by a panelist as one of the year's best.
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Hiking Alone: Trails Out, Trails Home
- By Mary Beath. University of New Mexico Press. 368 pp. . $19.95.
- Beath, a writer/artist living in NY fell in love with the SW when she flew to Tucson frequently (20+ years ago) to hike, paint, maintain a “diary”, and spend time with a man (who is still a friend but no longer an intimate part of her life). As she recounts it here moving permanently to Albuquerque she hikes and works and now, using her ongoing account to recreate, she tells us of things as diverse as a vision quest and an archaeological project on the Navajo Reservation. Curiously the latter has its own footnotes and bibliography as if it were being submitted to a journal for publication as an article. []
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Historic Native Peoples of Texas
- By William C. Foster. University of Texas Press. 346 pp. Index. . $29.95.
- Since the goal of historic Texas was to eliminate all Native people from its soil, and the state pretty well succeeded, this volume is most welcome. A result of prodigious research, the author has assembled an account of hundreds of tribes that occupied eight geographic regions over mainland Texas between 1528 and 1722. He has used translations from expedition diaries beginning with Cabeza de Vaca. A map accompanies each region or study area showing the location of the various tribes. Two appendices add further value: the first lists some 20 animals reported by both Spanish and French expeditions; the second includes 40 wild and domesticated plants to 1722. The book will be welcomed by teachers, anthropologists historians, and scholars. []
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Hohokam Millennium, The
- By Paul R. Fish, Suzanne K. Fish. School for Advanced Research Press. 154 pp. . $24.95.
- This book is a laudable effort to share what is known about the people who dominated central Arizona from about A.D. 450-1450 in what is called the Hohokam Millennium. These were the famed canal builders of the Salt River Valley, who at one time irrigated 70,000 acres. This volume assembles the experts to share the latest archaeological findings and to put that culture into modern perspective. The excellent photos and extensive maps breathe life into people who are now gone--- or are they? Some believe that modern tribes are their descendants, making the culture that much richer. It’s a beautiful book with stimulating reading. And the shadow of the collapsed irrigation technology looms like a vulture over modern cities and farms--- if drought and depletion could happen to the grandest ancient farmers of the Southwest, could it happen to us? []
- What happened to the prehistoric Hohokam? Evidence of a flourising and rich culture is still apparent in the Salt River Valley: hundreds of miles of canals that furnished life-saving water for nourishing lives and farms; remains of platform mounds; ball courts; shell jewellry; and pottery featuring the unforgettable Kokopelli. A number of anthropologists/archaeologists have contributed expert analyses of every aspect of the culture also suggesting that the modern Pimans are their descendants. Added to the understanding of the Hohokam cultural tradition are fine color and black and white photographs accompanied by numerous sketches. In addition to scholars and students, this is one book that a general public will enjoy. []
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Horses that Buck: the Story of Champion Bronc Rider Bill Smith
- By Margot Kahn. University of Oklahoma Press. 194 pp. Index. . $24.95.
- A good biography about a champion bronc rider and western rodeos. The only southwest in the story is one line about a rodeo in Tucson. []
