Narrating the four-century history of the American Southwest in a few thematic chapters with no footnotes and only a sample bibliography, this book is obviously intended for the general reader. Yet, with insight and artistry, the author has imparted meaning as well as human interest to most of the events he recounts and has channelled these into a single historical mainstream of remarkable continuity.
Hispanists should applaud the substantial attention devoted to the preAnglo period. Three of the seven chapters (137 of the 324 pages of text) dwell on the Spanish and Mexican development. Serious historians should appreciate the greater space allotted to vital factors than to the romantic trials and tribulations of early explorers.
Traditional history dies hard, however, for the wanderings of Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and the equally fruitless expedition of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado still occupy three times as many pages as the really momentous Pueblo Revolt of New Mexico and the reconquest of that province. Most shortcomings of the work, however, are those which might be expected of such a large, complex undertaking. By defining the limits of the Southwest geographically and reducing it to the characteristically arid region of popular concept, the author has excluded much that belongs to it historically (such as Monterey, California, and Los Andaes, Texas, both provincial capitals for a time). He wisely ignores his self-imposed boundaries, however, whenever they prove overly confining. His occasional misstatements of factual details may provoke the specialist but not the general reader, for they do not disturb the depth and flow of a worthwhile narrative history.
