The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 104, July 2000 - April, 2001 Page: 113
673 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Book Reviews
The third section looks mostly at Anglo interaction with the western environ-
ment: landscaping in Tucson (E. Gregory McPerson and Renee A. Haip), the
Northern Pacific Railway and irrigation projects in Kenniwick (Dorothy Zeisler-
Vralsted), and the management and manipulation of the National Parks
(Thomas R. Dunlap and Richard West Sellars). The articles focus on the chang-
ing attitudes of humans regarding interaction with the environment, while pro-
viding insight into the establishment of the conservation movement.
The longest and final section incorporates modern issues, such as the battle
against Echo Park Dam (Mark W. T. Harvey), Eugene's proposed nuclear power
facility (Daniel Pope), and prisons and industry in the heart of Mexican Amer-
ican East Los Angeles (Mary Pardo). Sherow also includes an important article
that explains the old adage, "water flows uphill to money" (221). F. Lee Brown
and Helen M. Ingram highlight the important cultural link between environ-
ment and Southwestern ethnic minorities. The final article by John Opie is a
warning for the future of the Old Dust Bowl region in particular, but also for the
world as a whole. He argues persuasively that dependence upon irrigation gives
farmers a false sense of security, warns about future global warming, and illus-
trates that the drought of 1988 "cannot be understood in isolation" (p. 262)-
one must look to the world's patterns and predictors. Chaos theory, it would
seem, must be applied to our understanding of environment, which rules out
humankind's complete domination of the environment.
This reviewer recommends the anthology for any class on the American West
or environmental history, as well as to scholars of environmental history. Sher-
ow's anthology does exactly what it sets out to do: provide a variety of views on
the environmental history of the West.
Nebraska Wesleyan University Sandra K. Mathews-Lamb
Horizontal Yellow: Nature and History in the Near Southwest. By Dan Flores.
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999. Pp. xv+312. Preface,
map, epilogue, bibliography, index. ISBN o-826-32011-2. $18.95, paper.)
Horizontal Yellow is the English translation of the Navajo term for the western
horizon of the American Southwest, or, for environmental historian Dan Flores
the area stitched together as the Near Southwest: Texas, New Mexico, and
Oklahoma, with parts of Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, and Arkansas.
In his book, Flores says the region adheres because it shares a bioregional
watershed, a history, and the "sensory impression" of wide-open plains, table-
lands and deserts. But what holds the book together are not these characteristics
but Flores's personal emotional and spiritual commitment to the places the area
contains. Horizontal Yellow is his paean to his roots in this region, his growing up
in Louisiana, his many years in Texas. In seven essays, Flores, Hammond
Professor of History at the University of Montana, explores the "wild" remnants
of this area, focusing mostly on the arid regions of West Texas.
The essays explore environmental and historical topics: the author's coming
into awareness of the place and his quest for a spiritual and intellectual under-2000
113
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 104, July 2000 - April, 2001, periodical, 2001; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101221/m1/141/?rotate=90: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.