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Legends of the American Desert: Sojourns in the Greater Southwest, by Alex Shoumatoff
Ebook Free Legends of the American Desert: Sojourns in the Greater Southwest, by Alex Shoumatoff
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For his brilliant reportage ranging from the forested recesses of the Amazon to the manicured lawns of Westchester County, New York, Alex Shoumatoff has won acclaim as one of our most perceptive guides to the oddest corners of the earth. Now, with this book, he takes us on a kaleidoscopic journey into the most complex and myth-laden region of the American landscape and imagination.
In this amazing narrative, Shoumatoff records his quest to capture the vast multiplicity of the American Southwest. Beginning with his first trip after college across the desert in a station wagon, some twenty-five years ago, he surveys the boundless variety of people and experiences constituting the place--the idea--that has become America's symbol and last redoubt of the "Other. From the Biosphere to the Mormons, from the deadly world of narcotraffickers to the secret lives of the covertly Jewish conversos, Shoumatoff explores the many alternative states of being who have staked their claim in the Southwest, making it a haven for every brand of refugee, fugitive, and utopian. And as he ventures across time and space, blending many genres--history, anthropology, natural science, to name only a few--he brings us a wealth of information on chile addiction, the diffusion of horses, the formation of the deserts and mountain ranges, the struggles of the Navajo to preserve their culture, and countless other aspects of this place we think we know.
Full of profound sympathy and unique insights, Legends of the American Desert is a superbly rich epic of fact and reflection destined to take its place among such classics of regional portraiture as Ian Frazier's Great Plains. Alex Shoumatoff has created an exuberant celebration of a singularly American reality.
- Sales Rank: #1626578 in eBooks
- Published on: 2013-07-17
- Released on: 2013-07-17
- Format: Kindle eBook
From Library Journal
Shoumatoff (The World Is Burning, LJ 8/90) has a great deal of fine writing to his credit, so it's a disappointment to find his latest?and longest?effort to be such a scattered, uneven work. His work misleads with its title and confuses as Shoumatoff changes roles?from raconteur to scholar to "hip" journalist. The book is divided into three loosely themed parts, beginning with water (or the lack of it) in the Southwest and ending with the author's acknowledgment of his self-serving attachment to Native American causes. In between, the subjects Shoumatoff covers range from the travels of Cabeza de Vaca to contemporary society in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Shoumatoff provides an explanation for the book's lack of cohesion in his acknowledgments (he's worked with eight different editors and three publishers since beginning the work in 1985). This title is easily enjoyed in bits and pieces but not as a whole. Recommended for larger public libraries.?Janet N. Ross, Sparks Branch Lib., Nev.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Shoumatoff has accrued a considerable reputation for varied and perceptive travel writing, and his latest book will not disappoint his avid fans. His focus now is on the American Southwest, where "everything comes down to the dryness." Through the many but fast-moving pages, the author immerses his fortunate readers in "hydrohistory," which charts the evolution of the southwestern environment, a place where water is at a premium, from prehistory to just yesterday. Shoumatoff focuses on past and present conditions of human, animal, and plant habitation--all in the face of the need to adapt to the scarcity of water. Elevating his account to superior travel writing, Shoumatoff smoothly blends geology, geography, history, economics, and even paleontology into a complete course in the American desert's story from the time of immigrant Native Americans coming over from Asia on the frozen Bering Sea to the kingdom of the cowboys in the nineteenth century to today's influx of retirees. Much richness to be mined here. Brad Hooper
From Kirkus Reviews
A masterfully written study of a region that is at once familiar and utterly foreign, by a journalist who has written for the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and other magazines. Little eludes the grasp of Shoumatoff (The World Is Burning, 1990, etc.) in this roughly chronological account of the Southwest's earliest peoples, its conquest and settlement by Spain, its later flood of Anglo immigrants and its most recent incarnation as a region of water-guzzling ``urban oases.'' While the history has already been told (and Shoumatoff acknowledges as much), the author here puts it into a highly vibrant context as he crisscrosses the land, pursuing its ancient and more modern history. Shoumatoff travels to the remotest precincts of northern Mexico's Sierra Madre, whose spectacular silver-veined canyons are now ruled by violent drug lords who have routinely murdered scores of uncooperative Tarahumara Indians. He jourrneys to the ruins of one of the supposed Seven Cities of Cibola in New Mexico, where the Zuni people, who wiped out a Spanish expedition over four centuries ago, still reside. With the mother of Navajo and former marine Clayton Lonetree, he visits the young man incarcerated at Fort Leavenworth. Frequent asides happily intrude throught out this sprawling volume: In no specific order, short chapters are devoted to such arcane subjcts as the history of the chile pepper; the hidden Jews of New Mexico; a stretch of Route 66. But of greatest saliency in this remarkable work, and what stitches its widely spaced locales together, is the nearly atavistic struggle among the Indian, Hispanic, and Anglo cultures for access to resources, a competition in which the latter has appropriated most of what is valuable in the Southwest, especially water, permitting the wasteful, extravagant lifestyles of metropolises such as Phoenix and Albuquerque, and the exclusive enclave of Santa Fe. Shoumatoff's book is a definitive accomplishment--an entertainingly informative read that must rank among the preeminent works on this region. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Most helpful customer reviews
17 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
Biased, but perhaps helpful...
By Andre Shoumatoff
I have to admit that what I write may be somewhat biased because I'm the author's oldest son, but I have some information which may be helpful to some readers who might otherwise be disillusioned regarding some of the facts and errors in the book, sloppyness of the editing, and other factors of the book which may contribute to an otherwise "sloppy" read.
For one, the book is (hardcover version) exactly 533 pages long. And in each page are at least 3 astute facts or contain at least something interesting, usually odd, but at least ammusing to keep the reader going. In any case, the read actually does work, as seen from evidence from various critics and from many of you guys. Despite your pet peeves (looks like the theme of critics on this particular page is "people who know about the area who are annoyed"), it actually does read well and while one might get bored or be occationally mislead, it is fairly comprehensive, and most importantly ties together the various aspects of culture and history to portray what seems to be *reality* of life in the Southwest and what factors influence that.
But otherwise, consider for one that he never really strays from who he is or ever pretend to be someone he isn't. I currently live in Vermont and out of fear (and because I often find myself doing exactly what he's doing, but in rural Vermont), I run Vermont plates. Even when I was 12 (the year we lived in New Mexico), I thought it particularly odd he had no quams about leaving his New York plates on his Chevy pickup, and despite the story he tells, he never goes out of his way to orient the read as if this is a history by a New Mexican for a New Mexican. Consider what the book does. If it was another book by another New Mexico historian about New Mexico, for one, it wouldn't have attracted nearly the attention it did, and secondly it would be considered "a history," and would probably be and would be considered a heck of a lot more boring than Legends of the Desert.
In case, the book is designed to *introduce* the reader to the Southwest. Why would someone well versed in New Mexico go out of their way to read about what they already know? I suppose you guys are the exceptions. Remember that this book was on the cover of the New York Times book review, and at the time attracted a lot of attention (certainly a lot more than any of his other books), in terms of positive reviews and general publicity. Despite what may be facts that are wrong, annoyances, it is still *paints the picture* of a place where things are a little different, and certainly very interesting once you get your first glimpse. It paints good sides and it paints bad, but most importantly, it paints.
Therefore, take it with a grain of salt and enjoy the read. That's what I did. You'll find it tremendously interesting, and get introduced to a whole new world.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
A Good Read, But Not a Reliable Source
By David B Richman
There have been many books written on deserts. Unfortunately few have been both engaging and accurate (I have searched in vain for a good up to date book on the Sahara, but have always been disappointed.) Thus when I found Alex Shoumatoff's "Legends of the American Desert: Sojourns in the Greater Southwest" I was impressed initially by his no-nonsense style and the recommendations on the back cover. Indeed, he catches the spirit of place in the American Southwest, much like Edward Abby did in "Desert Solitaire" and one is drawn from chapter to chapter by the flow of descriptions and ideas. However, as has been noted by a number of reviewers, Shoumatoff (being a newcomer) really needed a knowledgeable editor or fact checker. His facts sometimes (but perhaps not as often as implied by some reviewers) get all tangled up and in spots are totally wrong. This is a great pity as the book is well conceived and well written. Certainly its very size probably contributed to the problem.
In addition to the errors pointed out by earlier reviewers. I will note, rather nit pickingly, that Pat Garrett was not killed in the Tularosa Basin, as seems to be implied on p. 48 (Shoumatoff may be confusing Garrett with Albert Fountain, who was apparently murdered there - his body and that of his son were never found). Garrett was killed, apparently by a neighbor with whom he had a dispute about goats, while he was relieving himself between Organ and Las Cruces on the Mesilla Valley side of Saint Augustine Pass. Still the main points are accurate.
A good read and a good concept. I would be even more enthusiastic if I could always be sure of the facts the author quotes. If this book were edited a bit more it would be THE book to read on the greater Southwest.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Great raw material; needs more processing.
By Timothy Ritter
At the end of "Legends" Alex Shoumatoff mentions that the book had 8 editors in the course of its making. Nine must have been the magic number, for I've rarely seen a book published in sloppier form. Misspellings, typos, convoluted grammar, dates flung hither and thither without the slightest regard for accuracy... on p.35 he implies that Teotihuacan was built over 5000 years ago and that corn from this culture reached what is now known as New Mexico by "3600". I enclose that in quotes because he doesn't specify whether he means before the present or before Christ. Either way, it's a long time before Teotihuacan was built.
Pre-Columbian history is one of my favorite topics, so I pushed on in spite of this blundering. But on p.45 he pranced right into another pet peeve of mine, the reporting of populations of continents that had no census bureaus. He states the population of the Americas to be "fourteen million or so", at the time of Columbus' "discovery". The quotes around discovery are his, meant to display his politically correct Aboriginal American point of view. Unfortunately, if you're going to go down that road, you have to call it something other than America, because Amerigo Vespucci was European and if the Europeans didn't discover it, they certainly have no right to name it.
Editor #9 should place the word "guess" somewhere before the fourteen million. Then he or she should flip forward to p.76 where it is stated that the population in Mexico at the time of the conquest was thirty million. Not the Americas, just Mexico. If we can assume that Mexico's share of the 14 million in 1492 was 5 million, and that in just 27 years it swelled to 30 million, then Alex Shoumatoff has "discovered" the greatest pre-war baby boom in history! At the close of the fifteenth century the Mexicans were adding almost a million babies a year! Before the advent of Catholicism!
Granted, some latitude must be given when the title of a book is Legends, but perhaps Shoumatoff should give some little signal (such as italicization) when he's about to take off on his magic carpet to La-La Land. Of course, that still wouldn't give much cover to such egregious blunders as that of the snow snakes on p.44: "...perhaps eleven thousand years ago, the Bering Strait had frozen solid, creating a corridor between Alaska and Asia that enabled many forms of life to cross continents...various reptiles--frogs, snakes, including the pit viper--hopped or slithered over the bridge." Now really, are we to believe that 8 editors and the author himself don't know about cold blooded animals? What if this book were to fall into the hands of some of our nation's third graders? Would they enter the fourth grade thinking rattlesnakes slithered 12 miles across frozen ocean? Think, Alex, think!
It's a pity the book is such a mess, since there's much of interest in it. I'd always wondered where the expression "missionary position" came from, and Shoumatoff provides a plausible explanation. The saga of Clayton Lonetree was intriguing, as was the sidebar of the crass Brit who came to make a documentary about Lonetree's release from prison and the purification ceremony that followed. He was in it solely for the money, and was soundly rejected by Lonetree's family.
The whole theme of profiting from American Indians in one way or another is dealt with several times from different angles. Shoumatoff mentions how one tribal leader refuses to give out info on linguistics unless he is paid: "We don't give out that kind of information for nothing. We're wise to you guys."; to which Shoumatoff responds that he's a "great believer in the free exchange of information", a response that is a little puzzling in light of this book's $30 price tag. Perhaps it wouldn't seem inappropriate to Shoumatoff for the man to charge money for his knowledge if he gave himself the title of linguistic consultant, and had an office on the campus of a prestigious university.
One stumbles into a no man's land between capitalism and spirituality and scholarly research. There is another chapter that deals with the ferocious competition among archeologists to find the earliest human settlement in the Americas. If that tribal rep were to have his way, all the old bones and potsherds being dug up would have to be paid for, which doesn't strike me as so unreasonable. On the other hand, some tribal reps would prohibit any digging at all, and all remains currently in museums would have to be returned to the ground. On still another hand, if the digging were to go on with payments made to indigenous peoples, how would it be decided which tribe would receive the money?
What would really be interesting would be to pay the tribal rep for the info, then follow the money trail. Would he split it equally with the other members of his tribe or keep it for himself? Would he be taxed on the income if Shoumatoff were to deduct the figure from his own income as a business expense? Can the US government tax an Indian tribe? Would wholesaling relics and ruins be more profitable than bingo? Could that possibly be a way of protecting the land from profiteers who would destroy its beauty through the excessive mining and logging that is detailed elsewhere in the book?
One wonders, finally, how this relic of 19th century segregation called the reservation, which comprises a huge percentage of the American Desert, has survived to the 21st.
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