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Stories from prehistoric times to the future, about land, our abuse of the land, and the impact on the people who come after
Combines history, anthropology, natural science, and personal narrative to provide a portrait of the American Southwest, looking at the variety of people and experiences that populate the area, focusing on the struggle between different cultures for access to water, and examining many other aspects of the diverse region.
A history of man's attempt to turn American's arid regions into productive areas.
The cult-y pocket-size field guide to the strange and intriguing secrets of the Mojave—its myths and legends, outcasts and oddballs, flora, fauna, and UFOs—becomes the definitive, oracular book of the desert For the past five years, Desert Oracle has existed as a quasi-mythical, quarterly periodical available to the very determined only by subscription or at the odd desert-town gas station or the occasional hipster boutique, its canary-yellow-covered, forty-four-page issues handed from one curious desert zealot to the next, word spreading faster than the printers could keep up with. It became a radio show, a podcast, a live performance. Now, for the first time—and including both classic and new, never-before-seen revelations—Desert Oracle has been bound between two hard covers and is available to you. Straight out of Joshua Tree, California, Desert Oracle is “The Voice of the Desert”: a field guide to the strange tales, singing sand dunes, sagebrush trails, artists and aliens, authors and oddballs, ghost towns and modern legends, musicians and mystics, scorpions and saguaros, out there in the sand. Desert Oracle is your companion at a roadside diner, around a campfire, in your tent or cabin (or high-rise apartment or suburban living room) as the wind and the coyotes howl outside at night. From journal entries of long-deceased adventurers to stray railroad ad copy, and musings on everything from desert flora, rumored cryptid sightings, and other paranormal phenomena, Ken Layne's Desert Oracle collects the weird and the wonderful of the American Southwest into a single, essential volume.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about Cadillac Desert in the past few weeks, as the rain fell and fell and kept falling over California, much of which, despite the pouring heavens, seems likely to remain in the grip of a severe drought. Reisner anticipated this moment. He worried that the West’s success with irrigation could be a mirage — that it took water for granted and didn’t appreciate the precariousness of our capacity to control it.” – Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times, January 20,2023 "The definitive work on the West's water crisis." --Newsweek The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruption and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecological and economic disaster. In his landmark book, Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in the competition to transform the West. Based on more than a decade of research, Cadillac Desert is a stunning expose and a dramatic, intriguing history of the creation of an Eden--an Eden that may only be a mirage. This edition includes a new postscript by Lawrie Mott, a former staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, that updates Western water issues over the last two decades, including the long-term impact of climate change and how the region can prepare for the future.
Dramatic, highly readable, and painstakingly researched, The Great Desert Escape brings to light a little-known escape by 25 determined German sailors from an American prisoner-of-war camp. The disciplined Germans tunneled unnoticed through rock-hard, sunbaked soil and crossed the unforgiving Arizona desert. They were heading for Mexico, where there were sympathizers who could help them return to the Fatherland. It was the only large-scale domestic escape by foreign prisoners in US history. Wrung from contemporary newspaper articles, interviews, and first-person accounts from escapees and the law enforcement officers who pursued them, The Great Desert Escape brings history to life. At the US Army’s prisoner-of-war camp at Papago Park just outside of Phoenix, life was, at the best of times, uneasy for the German Kreigsmariners. On the outside of their prison fences were Americans who wanted nothing more than to see them die slow deaths for their perceived roles in killing fathers and brothers in Europe. Many of these German prisoners had heard rumors of execution for those who escaped. On the inside were rabid Nazis determined to get home and continue the fight. At Papago Park in March 1944, a newly arrived prisoner who was believed to have divulged classified information to the Americans was murdered—hung in one of the barracks by seven of his fellow prisoners. The prisoners of war dug a tunnel 6 feet deep and 178 feet long, finishing in December 1944. Once free of the camp, the 25 Germans scattered. The cold and rainy weather caused several of the escapees to turn themselves in. One attempted to hitchhike his way into Phoenix, his accent betraying him. Others lived like coyotes among the rocks and caves overlooking Papago Park. All the while, the escapees were pursued by soldiers, federal agents, police and Native American trackers determined to stop them from reaching Mexico and freedom.
Over 40 illustrations: Gila monster, kit fox, prairie dog, other animals; also plants: cactus, rice grass, saltbush, many more.
Nine romantic adventures take readers along for a ride on the Oregon Trail where daily challenges force travelers to evaluate the things that are most precious to them—including love. Enjoy the trip through a fascinating part of history through the eyes of remarkably strong characters who stop at famous landmarks along the way. Watch as their faith is strengthened and as love is born despite unique circumstances. Discover where the journey ends for each of nine couples.
The author covers conflicts from 1837 through 1886 in Arizona, New Mexico, and California. Important chiefs covered include Mangas Coloradas, Cochise, Victorio, Geronimo, and Captain Jack. Army officers covered include George Crook and Nelson Miles.
A brilliantly illuminating portrait of the twenty-first-century West—a book as vast, diverse, and unexpected as the land and the people, from one of our foremost chroniclers of migration The economic boom—and the devastation left in its wake—has been writ nowhere as large as on the West, the most iconic of American landscapes. Over the last decade the West has undergone a political and demographic upheaval comparable only to the opening of the frontier. Now, in Desert America, a work of powerful reportage and memoir, Rubén Martínez, acclaimed author of Crossing Over, evokes a new world of extremes: outrageous wealth and devastating poverty, sublime beauty and ecological ruin. In northern New Mexico, an epidemic of drug addiction flourishes in the shadow of some of the country's richest zip codes; in Joshua Tree, California, gentrification displaces people and history. In Marfa, Texas, an exclusive enclave triggers a race war near the banks of the Rio Grande. And on the Tohono O'odham reservation, Native Americans hunt down Mexican migrants crossing the most desolate stretch of the border. With each desert story, Martínez explores his own encounter with the West and his love for this most contested region. In the process, he reveals that the great frontier is now a harbinger of the vast disparities that are redefining the very idea of America.