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Nestled in the Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson, Arizona, Sabino Canyon demonstrates the beauty and resiliency of life in what many would assume to be a most inhospitable place. For thousands of visitors each year, this oasis in the Sonoran Desert offers the opportunity to experience biodiversity in action.

David Lazaroff has called on years of studying, photographing, and educating people about Sabino Canyon to produce this clearly written and beautifully illustrated book. Focusing on the importance of Sabino Creek both to plants and animals and to human recreation, he tracks the ebb and flow of canyon life through the year and tells how people have sought to utilize the canyon through history. First-time visitors to Sabino Canyon will find their experience enriched through Lazaroff's insights into plants, animals, and geology, while those who regularly frequent Sabino's trails or pools can become better informed about its fragile desert and riparian habitats.

For anyone curious about life in a genuine Southwestern oasis, this book captures the beauty and uniqueness of a natural treasure-house located in a bustling city's back yard.

Marriage, divorce, birth, baptism, and census records are the essential records of a community. Through them we see who marries, who divorces, and how many children are born. Sal Acosta has studied a broad base of these vital records to produce the largest quantitative study of intermarriage of any group in the West. Sanctioning Matrimony examines intermarriage in the Tucson area between 1860 and 1930. Unlike previous studies on intermarriage, this book examines not only intermarriages of Mexicans with whites but also their unions with blacks and Chinese.

Following the Treaty of Mesilla (1853), interethnic relationships played a significant part in the Southwest. Acosta provides previously unseen archival research on the scope and tenor of interracial marriages in Arizona. Contending that scholarship on intermarriage has focused on the upper classes, Acosta takes us into the world of the working and lower classes and illuminates how church and state shaped the behavior of participants in interracial unions.

Marriage practices in Tucson reveal that Mexican women were pivotal in shaping family and social life between 1854 and 1930. Virtually all intermarriages before 1900 were, according to Acosta, between Mexican women and white men, or between Mexican women and blacks or Chinese until the 1920s, illustrating the importance of these women during the transformation of Tucson from a Mexican pueblo to an American town.

Acosta’s deep analysis of vital records, census data, and miscegenation laws in Arizona demonstrates how interethnic relationships benefited from and extended the racial fluidity of the Arizona borderlands.

2020 Winner of the Southwest Book Awards
2020 Spur Awards Finalist Contemporary Nonfiction, Western Writers of America 

The Grand Canyon has been saved from dams three times in the last century. Unthinkable as it may seem today, many people promoted damming the Colorado River in the canyon during the early twentieth century as the most feasible solution to the water and power needs of the Pacific Southwest. These efforts reached their climax during the 1960s when the federal government tried to build two massive hydroelectric dams in the Grand Canyon. Although not located within the Grand Canyon National Park or Monument, they would have flooded lengthy, unprotected reaches of the canyon and along thirteen miles of the park boundary.

Saving Grand Canyon tells the remarkable true story of the attempts to build dams in one of America’s most spectacular natural wonders. Based on twenty-five years of research, this fascinating ride through history chronicles a hundred years of Colorado River water development, demonstrates how the National Environmental Policy Act came to be, and challenges the myth that the Sierra Club saved the Grand Canyon. It also shows how the Sierra Club parlayed public perception as the canyon’s savior into the leadership of the modern environmental movement after the National Environmental Policy Act became law.

The tale of the Sierra Club stopping the dams has become so entrenched—and so embellished—that many historians, popular writers, and filmmakers have ignored the documented historical record. This epic story puts the events from 1963–1968 into the broader context of Colorado River water development and debunks fifty years of Colorado River and Grand Canyon myths.

As a site of scientific activity, the Southwest may be best known for atomic research at Los Alamos and astronomical observations at Kitt Peak. But as George Webb shows, these twentieth-century endeavors follow a complex history of discovery that dates back to Spanish colonial times, and they point toward an exciting future. Ranging broadly over the natural and human sciences, Webb shows that the Southwest—specifically Arizona, New Mexico, and west Texas—began as a natural laboratory that attracted explorers interested in its flora, fauna, and mineral wealth. Benjamin Silliman's mining research in the nineteenth century, for example, marked the development of the region as a colonial outpost of American commerce, and A. E. Douglass's studies of climatic cycles through tree rings attest to the rise of institutional research. World War II and the years that followed brought more scientists to the region, seeking secluded outposts for atomic research and clear skies for astronomical observations. What began as a colony of the eastern scientific establishment soon became a self-sustaining scientific community. Webb shows that the rise of major institutions—state universities, observatories, government labs—proved essential to the growth of Southwest science, and that government support was an important factor not only in promoting scientific research at Los Alamos but also in establishing agricultural and forestry experiment stations. And in what had always been a land of opportunity, women scientists found they had greater opportunity in the Southwest than they would have had back east. All of these factors converged at the end of the last century, with the Southwest playing a major role in NASA's interplanetary probes. While regionalism is most often used in studying culture, Webb shows it to be equally applicable to understanding the development of science. The individuals and institutions that he discusses show how science was established and grew in the region and reflect the wide variety of research conducted. By joining Southwest history with the history of science in ways that illumine both fields, Webb shows that the understanding of regional science is essential to a complete understanding of the Southwest.

"My house is the red earth; it could be the center of the world."

This is Navajo country, a land of mysterious and delicate beauty. "Stephen Strom's photographs lead you to that place," writes Joy Harjo. "The camera eye becomes a space you can move through into the powerful landscapes that he photographs. The horizon may shift and change all around you, but underneath it is the heart with which we move." Harjo's prose poems accompany these images, interpreting each photograph as a story that evokes the spirit of the Earth. Images and words harmonize to evoke the mysteries of what the Navajo call the center of the world.

Winner of the Don D. and Catherine S. Fowler Prize 

This data-rich monograph provides new and stimulating perspectives on the Hohokam people and their mortuary practices. It breaks new ground by using the knowledge of descendent peoples to generate archaeologically testable hypotheses; demonstrating the need for mortuary analyses conducted at a regional scale; and synthesizing of the interaction of beliefs, ideology, social organization, and ecology in determining Hohokam mortuary practices. Various chapters discuss body treatment, mortuary furniture and goods, mortuary architecture, and cemeteries, and numerous figures help document the variability of Hohokam practices.  

The study synthesizes data from various excavations, applied archaeology, and cultural resource management projects. With its review of past research and ethnographic accounts along with line drawings of mortuary features and artifacts, Sending the Spirits Home provides tools for the adoption of standardized protocols needed to facilitate cross-project comparisons on which future regional syntheses can be based. Although written for archaeologists, the book does not require a specialist’s knowledge to appreciate its insights into these early people of the Southwest. 

Bobby Burns arrived in Tucson, Arizona, with a few dollars in his pocket and no place to live. Without family, without a job, he had nowhere to go but a homeless shelter. How did a college graduate find himself so close to life on the streets? In a voice that is startling for its simplicity and utter honesty, Burns tells the story of how he slipped into homelessness, how he learned what it means to live in a place where nobody will notice if you disappear, and how he emerged to tell his story. Bobby's diary of 41 days without a home brings readers into the world of a homeless shelter.

Shelter is filled with the sights and sounds of homelessness. Shelter life is patterned by meals provided by church volunteers, lines for soap and clean towels, the repeated meticulous washing of hands by an obsessive-compulsive resident, the rare pleasure of a fried chicken dinner, the illicit smell of marijuana within the shelter. Burns witnesses the residents' struggles with drugs, alcohol, and disability, and he wonders daily whether he will have the courage to emerge from this life. Bobby's diary expresses the full range of emotions of a homeless person: anger, self-pity, pride, humility, shame, depression, and optimism. These are not contradictions; taken together they represent the real feelings provoked by homelessness.

But with rare inner courage, Bobby stokes the fires of hope within himself, marking the days in his journal to keep himself from sliding deeper into a spiral of despair. Bobby confronts his own stereotypes about the homeless and learns firsthand what it means to struggle daily for survival and for dignity. He learns greater courage and he learns greater kindness. He is given food and a bed for 41 days, but he finds shelter on his own, deep within himself.

Motivated by a love of her Mexican American heritage, Patricia Preciado Martin set out to document the lives and memories of the women of her mother's and grandmother's eras; for while the role of women in Southwest has begun to be chronicled, that of Hispanic women largely remains obscure. In Songs My Mother Sang to Me, she has preserved the oral histories of many of these women before they have been lost or forgotten.

Martin's quest took her to ranches, mining towns, and cities throughout southern Arizona, for she sought to document as varied an experience of the contributions of Mexican American women as possible. The interviews covered family history and genealogy, childhood memories, secular and religious traditions, education, work and leisure, environment and living conditions, rites of passage, and personal values. Each of the ten oral histories reflects not only the spontaneity of the interview and personality of each individual, but also the friendship that grew between Martin and her subjects.

Songs My Mother Sang to Me collects voices not often heard and brings to print accounts of social change never previously recorded. These women document more than the details of their own lives; in relating the histories of their ancestors and communities, they add to our knowledge of the culture and contributions of Mexican American people in the Southwest.

Far to the south of Arizona’s sprawling metropolises, a rolling savanna of grass, oak, and mesquite rises above the surrounding deserts. The Sonoita Plain is a basin of a thousand square miles bracketed by mountains, a land once the domain of cowboys that is now more and more the focus of exurban development. These southwestern grasslands are both typical of and distinct from those of the Great Plains—similarly shaped by drought, grazing, and fire, but with a different flora and fauna, and the product of a different human history.

The Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch is a tract of 8,000 acres on the Sonoita Plain that was established in 1968 by the Appleton family and that is now part of the sanctuary system of the National Audubon Society. To all appearances, it is an ordinary piece of land, but for the last 35 years it has been treated in an extraordinary way—by leaving it alone. No grazing to influence grass production. No dam building to hold back flash floods. No pest control. No fire-fighting. By employing such non-action, might we gain a glimpse of what this land was like hundreds, even thousands, of years ago?

Through essays and photographs focusing on the Sanctuary and surrounding area, this book reveals the complex ecology and unique aesthetics of its grasslands and savannas. Carl and Jane Bock and Stephen Strom share a passion for the remarkable beauty found here, and in their book they describe its environment, biodiversity, and human history. People have dominated the world’s grasslands and savannas for so long that today we have no clear idea what these lands might be like without us. By understanding the lessons of the Sonoita Plain, we might gain such insight—and, more important, discover approaches to protecting the very things that attract us to such lands in the first place.

"The bloodsucking bat, construction of bows and arrows, the punishment for adultery among the Apaches... all was grist that dropped into the industrious mill of Father Pfefferkorn's eyes, ears, and brain."—Saturday Review

"To be read for enjoyment; nevertheless, the historian will find in it a wealth of information that has been shrewdly appraised, carefully sifted, and creditably related."—Catholic Historical Review

"Of interest not only to the historian but to the geographer and anthropologist."—Pacific Historical Review
 

For decades archaeologists have used pottery to reconstruct the lifeways of ancient populations. It has become increasingly evident, however, that to make inferences about prehistoric economic, social, and political activities through the patterning of ceramic variation, it is necessary to determine the location where the vessels were made. Through detailed analysis of manufacturing technology and design styles as well as the use of modern analytical techniques such as neutron activation analysis, Zedeño here demonstrates a broadly applicable methodology for identifying local and nonlocal ceramics.

Southern Arizona is a not only a world-class travel destination, it's also a region with so many natural attractions that even its residents never run out of places to explore. The Southern Arizona Nature Almanac reveals the incredible diversity of the desert Southwest by highlighting its most compelling features and natural phenomena for each month of the year: blooming plants, wildlife activity, places to visit, weather, and prominent constellations. From migratory birds to snakes to insects, the almanac will show you what to expect in the sky or under your feet, no matter what season you venture out.

In addition to original illustrations by Jonathan Hanson, the guide includes photos and weather charts. Handy appendixes include lists of birds, mammals, reptiles, butterflies, and a desert plants "blooming calendar." Accessible to the fledgling naturalist and detailed enough for the natural scientist, the Southern Arizona Nature Almanac is a definitive resource guide to the natural wonders of this fascinating land.

“[Dobyns] has written a fascinating account of the ethnic development of early Tucson. Using a variety of methods and sources, he reveals how Spaniards, mestizos from New Spain, and Native Americans from many tribes laid the ethnic foundations for the modern city. The book also provides much insight into the general history of Spanish colonial society as it evolved in the Tucson area to 1821. . . . Dobyns, utilizing previously unpublished primary sources, allows the early inhabitants of the Tucson area to speak for themselves, and their comments add much to a very colorful and exciting but often grim story. . . . And his penetrating look at the ethnic development of early Tucson should attract attention from anyone interested in a better understanding of how the nation as a whole achieved its multi-cultural character.” —The Journal of American History

Between 1963 and 1968, environmentalists were outraged when western water interests sought to construct two dams in Grand Canyon as part of the Central Arizona Project. The Sierra Club led a national campaign opposed to the project, which most environmental historians credit with defeating the dams. In the wake of its victory, the Sierra Club has been lauded as the savior of Grand Canyon. Byron Pearson now takes a closer look at history to show that the Sierra Club's ability to mobilize public opinion did not appreciably influence Congress, where the issue was actually decided. When Arizona congressman Stewart Udall became Interior Secretary in 1960, he promoted a plan to import water from the Pacific Northwest to California in order to placate that state's opposition to the CAP with its proposed dams. When this support dissolved in the face of resistance from Washington senator Henry Jackson, who chaired the Senate Interior Committee, the pragmatic Udall sought passage of a bare-bones CAP bill without the dams before he and Arizona senator Carl Hayden retired. Despite this congressional deal-making, the Sierra Club received credit for blocking the dams and was propelled to the undisputed leadership of the environmental movement. Using the myth that it had saved the Canyon, the club transformed its image of power into real political influence after Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act in 1970, giving environmental advocates access to the policy-making process for the first time. In revealing how the Sierra Club played a much lesser role in blocking the dams than they would have had the public believe, Pearson contrasts the ways in which the controversy unfolded in the court of public opinion versus the actual political process. He takes readers into congressional chambers and conference rooms, reconstructing the legislative process to convey the full flavor of this political give-and-take. Based on research in archives from all over the country, Still the Wild River Runs will itself be a subject of controversy as it challenges long-standing notions about the power of environmental lobbies. By putting this chain of historical events in clearer perspective, it can give citizens concerned with future causes a better understanding of the political process and what really moves it.