The new desert reader : descriptions of America's arid regions / edited by Peter Wild ; with selections from the writings of Dean Saxton and Lucille Saxton ... [and others].

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Wild, Peter, 1940-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Deserts--Southwest, New.

Deserts.

Local history.

Desert ecology.

New Southwest.

Desert ecology--Southwest, New.

Southwest, New--Description and travel.

Southwest, New.

Southwest, New--History, Local.

Deserts--West (U.S.).

West (U.S.)--Description and travel.

West (U.S.).

Physical Description:

viii, 324 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Salt Lake City : University of Utah Press, [2006]

Summary:

The New Desert Reader brings together a historical cross section of writing about the American Southwest in selections that demonstrate how thinking about American deserts has changed from the earliest times to the present day. Expanded and reformatted from the original Desert Reader, the new reader adds more selections and updated chapter introductions to reflect recent views of the American deserts.

Beginning with the centuries-old legends of the Tohono O'Odham Indians, The New Desert Reader moves through the foresighted observations of John Wesley Powell, the one-armed explorer of the Grand Canyon; continues with the delicate appreciations of Mary Austin and Joseph Wood Krutch; includes examples of the keen activist writings of Wallace Stegner and Edward Abbey; and finishes with such contemporary desert writers as Tony Hillerman and Ann Zwinger.

A slow change in outlook dominates the book, as attitudes shift from viewing the desert as a place of sanctity, then a land to be despised or exploited, and back to an appreciation of it as a special place, an arena of highly complex natural communities, and a wild refuge for the human body and soul.

Comprehensive and brightly informative, The New Desert Reader will be invaluable to anyone interested in the history, literature, and beauty of North America's treasured desert places.

Contents:

Introduction: Where God Is and Man Is Not 1

1 First Dreamers: Legends and Lore of the Papago and Pima Indians / Dean Saxton, Lucille Saxton 7

2 Two Dreams Meet: The Narrative of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca 21

3 Derring-Do: The Personal Narrative of James Ohio Pattie 31

4 The Democratization of Horrors: Death Valley in '49 / William L. Manly 45

5 Famine Sits Enthroned: An Overland Journey / Horace Greeley 55

6 The Privileged Tourist: Adventures in the Apache Country / J. Ross Browne 67

7 Moon Mania: Mission of the North American People / William Gilpin 78

8 Into the Labyrinths: Exploration of the Colorado River of the West / John Wesley Powell 92

9 Seeing with New Eyes: Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States / John Wesley Powell 106

10 The Desert Sublime: Tertiary History of the Grand Canon District / Clarence E. Dutton 123

11 The Southwest as Show Biz: Some Strange Corners of Our Country / Charles F. Lummis 135

12 Second Thoughts: On the Border with Crook / John G. Bourke 141

13 The Desert as Art: The Desert / John C. Van Dyke 158

14 A Child of the Earth and Moon: The Land of Little Rain / Mary Austin 166

15 Something Stood Still in My Soul: Indians and an Englishman and New Mexico / D. H. Lawrence 184

16 Regional Wholeness: The Voice of the Coyote / J. Frank Dobie 197

17 A Wild Country to Be Young In: A Sand County Almanac / Aldo Leopold 211

18 God's Hand in the Sky: The Desert Year / Joseph Wood Krutch 223

19 The Geography of Hope: The Sound of Mountain Water / Wallace Stegner 234

20 The Ghost of Radicals Past: Abbey's Road / Edward Abbey 247

21 Waking Up to Eternity: Wind in the Rock / Ann Zwinger 260

22 The Esthetic of Detachment: Scenes in America Deserta / Peter Reyner Banham 275

23 Changing Genuine Desert Mysteries: Skeleton Man / Tony Hillerman 290

24 Teetering on the Edge: "The Tangle of Taxonomy" / Ann Japenga 302

Epilogue: Where We Are 306.

Notes:

Rev. ed. of: The desert reader. 1991.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-317) and index.

ISBN:

0874808715

OCLC:

63195886

Publisher Number:

9780874808711