The University of Arizona Press is the premier publisher of academic, regional, and literary works in the state of Arizona. They disseminate ideas and knowledge of lasting value that enrich understanding, inspire curiosity, and enlighten readers. They advance the University of Arizona’s mission by connecting scholarship and creative expression to readers worldwide.
Breaking Into the Current
Boatwomen of the Grand Canyon
Early Stages in the Evolution of Mesopotamian Civilization
Between 1969 and 1980, Soviet archaeologists conducted excavations of Mesopotamian villages occupied from pre-agricultural times through the beginnings of early civilization. This volume brings together translations of Russian articles along with new work.
Myths and Tales of the White Mountain Apache
The Mexican Border Cities
Landscape Anatomy and Place Personality
Bighorse the Warrior
Border People
Life and Society in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
Pastoralists at the Periphery
Herders in a Capitalist World
When Is a Kiva?
And Other Questions About Southwestern Archaeology
Returning the Gift
Poetry and Prose from the First North American Native Writers' Festival
Sourcing Prehistoric Ceramics at Chodistaas Pueblo, Arizona
The Circulation of People and Pots in the Grasshopper Region
There Was a River
On October 7, 1962, Bruce Berger and three friends embarked on what may have been the last trip taken through the Colorado River's Glen Canyon before the floodgates were closed at Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell began to fill. After thirty years, one can grieve for what was lost and then, like Berger, take another look around.
The Southwest Berger sees is an unusual, even odd, place, with inhabitants that are just as strange. In this collection of essays he introduces us to people and places that define a region and a way of life. We meet eccentric desert dwellers like Cactus Pete, who claimed to have mapped the mountains of Venus long before NASA penetrated its clouds. We chart the canals of Phoenix, which have created a Martian landscape out of an irrigation system dating back to the ancient Hohokam; stay at a "wigwam" motel in Holbrook, whose kitsch appeals even to Hopis; and dim our lights for the International Dark-Sky Association's efforts to keep night skies safe for astronomy.
Focusing on the interaction of people with the environment, Berger reveals an original vision of the Southwest that encompasses both city and wilderness. In a concluding essay centering on the sale of his mother's estate in Phoenix, he concedes that "our intention to leave the desert alone has resulted, unwittingly, in loss after loss, simply by our being here." Sometimes there are lossesa canyon, a housebut Berger attunes us to the prodigies of change.