The Hayduke Trail: A Guide to the Backcountry Hiking Trail on the Colorado Plateau, Joe Mitchell and Mike Coronella, 288 pages, paperback $19.95. University of Utah Press, 2005. If you have to ask, “Who’s Hayduke?” this isn’t the book for you. This guide wanders from Zion National Park to Arches via the Grand Canyon, Bryce, […]
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Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
Serafina’s Stories
Serafina’s Stories Rudolfo Anaya 202 pages, hardcover $22.95. University of New Mexico Press, 2004. Set in Santa Fe in 1680, this tale from Rudolfo Anaya is a treat. Night after night, Serafina, a 15-year old Pueblo woman, enchants the Spanish Governor with stories to free her fellow prisoners accused of plotting an insurrection. Serafina’s stories […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
The River Has Never Divided Us: A Border History of La Junta de los Rios
The River Has Never Divided Us: A Border History of La Junta de los Rios Jefferson Morgenthaler 368 pages, softcover $22.95. University of Texas Press, 2004. The Rio Grande and Rio Conchos meet to form La Junta de los Rios, a basin along the U.S.-Mexico border where the cast of characters includes farmers, shepherds, Border […]
Posted inMay 2, 2005: The Great Energy Divide
The Mountains Know Arizona
The Mountains Know Arizona Text by Rose Houk, photographs by Michael Collier 272 pages, hardcover $49.95. Arizona Highways Books, 2003. If you can tear yourself away from the spectacular photos — including some mind-numbing aerial shots (see page 14) — to read the accompanying words, you will be rewarded. In this chunky coffee-table book, Houk […]
Posted inApril 18, 2005: What Happened to Winter?
Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America’s Superstate
Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America’s Superstate Robert Bryce 327 pages, hardcover $26.00. PublicAffairs, 2004 “I’m all for business. I’m all for government. I just don’t want them to be the same thing,” says Robert Bryce, taking on the state of Texas and its enormous political influence over American life, from […]
Posted inApril 18, 2005: What Happened to Winter?
The Western Confluence: A Guide to Governing Natural Resources
The Western Confluence: A Guide to Governing Natural Resources Matthew McKinney and William Harmon 297 pages, softcover $30, hardcover $60. Island Press, 2004 Authors McKinney and Harmon look at the West’s endless tug-of-wars over water, land use, fire management and wildlife — issues, they say, best resolved through collaboration, negotiation, or consensus. That’s not easy, […]
Posted inApril 18, 2005: What Happened to Winter?
The World’s Water 2004-2005: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources
The World’s Water 2004-2005: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources Edited by Peter Gleick 320 pages, softcover $35. Island Press, 2004. The fourth installment of this annual report covers water issues that span the globe. Gleick — president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security — and other water brainiacs contemplate […]
Posted inApril 4, 2005: Calling It Quits
Santa Fe Hispanic Culture: Preserving Identity in a Tourist Town
Santa Fe Hispanic Culture: Preserving Identity in a Tourist Town Andrew Leo Lovato, 160 pages, hardcover $24.95. University of New Mexico Press, 2004. As author Andrew Leo Lovato writes, Santa Fe is not only a “city of ancient traditions” but one of “invented traditions” — in other words, it’s a true tourist town. “It is […]
Posted inApril 4, 2005: Calling It Quits
Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life
Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life Theda Skocpol, 384 pages, softcover $24.95. University of Oklahoma Press, 2004. Harvard University professor Theda Skocpol wants to know where all the volunteers have gone. Americans today are less likely to join volunteer groups than at any other time in the past, and the ubiquitous […]
Posted inApril 4, 2005: Calling It Quits
Common Southwestern Native Plants: An Identification Guide
Common Southwestern Native Plants: An Identification Guide Jack L. Carter, Martha A. Carter and Donna J. Stevens, 214 pages, softcover $20. Mimbres Publishing, 2003. This user-friendly guide includes photos and descriptions of 108 woody species and 38 flowering plants found throughout the Southwest. Bonuses include a ruler for measuring leaves and flowers and an illustrated […]
Posted inApril 4, 2005: Calling It Quits
The last happy agency biologist — and other April Foolery
Public servant decides it’s time to put his feet up and relax
Posted inApril 4, 2005: Calling It Quits
Buyouts by the numbers
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Big Buyout.” The legislation proposed by the National Public Lands Grazing Campaign would offer a “golden saddle” to public-land ranchers, ponying up $175 per animal unit month — the amount of forage needed to support a cow and her calf for a month. […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
Seeds of Deception
Seeds of Deception Jeffrey M. Smith, 280 pages, softcover $17.95, hardcover $27.95. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2003. Despite the reassurances of big biotech companies that genetically modified foods are safe and healthy, Jeffrey Smith says that just isn’t so. He investigates the many things that can go wrong with “Frankenstein foods,” explaining how unintended consequences can […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
State of the World 2005: Redefining Global Security
State of the World 2005: Redefining Global Security The Worldwatch Institute, 237 pages, softcover $18.95. W.W. Norton & Company, 2005. The Worldwatch Institute’s latest annual report offers insight into issues from nuclear weapons proliferation to renewable energy. In a chapter on water, researchers provide examples in which locals and religious organizations, as well as water […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2005: An Empire Built on Sand
UFOs Over Galisteo and Other Stories of New Mexico’s History
UFOs Over Galisteo and Other Stories of New Mexico’s History Robert J. Tórrez, 160 pages, softcover $16.95. University of New Mexico Press, 2004. A retired state historian, Tórrez creates vivid vignettes of New Mexico’s past. He enlivens his accounts of arranged marriages, water disputes and stagecoaches with historical photos and documents. The book also contains […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror
The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror David W. Orr, 172 pages, hardcover $20. Island Press, 2004. David Orr, professor of environmental studies and politics at Oberlin College, explains how our centralized, industrialized, corporate way of life makes us more vulnerable to acts of terrorism. But he offers a […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
As if We Were Grownups: A Collection of ‘Suicidal’ Political Speeches That Aren’t
As if We Were Grownups: A Collection of “Suicidal” Political Speeches That Aren’t Jeff Golden, 147 pages, softcover $12. Riverwood Books, 2004. Sick of endless political spin? Oregon writer Jeff Golden is, too. He makes the case that politicians need to treat voters like adults and tell us the difficult truth, even if it’s not […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Western Voices: 125 years of Colorado Writing
Western Voices: 125 years of Colorado Writing Edited by Steve Grinstead and Ben Fogelberg 396 pages, softcover $19.95. Fulcrum Press, 2004. Editors from the Colorado Historical Society chose the essays in this diverse collection, and they chose well. There’s Muriel Sibell Wolle describing the intense two-year lifespan of a mining town too high to endure […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2005: Have Environmentalists Failed the West?
The Editors Respond
We appreciate Rebecca Watson’s invitation to Westerners, and we salute the many positive efforts Interior is undertaking to protect wild places and involve the public. But we do not believe HCN has mischaracterized the Bush administration’s record. On the subject of opening land to development: In 2001, the Department of Agriculture rewrote the Roadless Area […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2005: Have Environmentalists Failed the West?
The Basket Maker
The Basket Maker Kate Niles 224 pages, hardcover $22.95.BR> GreyCore Press, 2004. This first novel by a college writing instructor in Durango, Colo., tells a searing story of incest and compassion from five perspectives, including the ghost of the Ute Chief Ouray. Surprisingly, the device works, and we are gripped. This article appeared in the […]