Enchantment and Exploitation: The Life and Hard Times of a New Mexico Mountain Range

Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Read, A Treasure, A Gem....
Review: Very well written, a lovely landscape of history, thoughts, and pictures... one of three books by the same author that lured me to that beautiful land of North Central New Mexico... if only for a visit... worth the money, worth the time, worth the magic.

Rating:
Summary: Very readable history (and more) of a fascinating area
Review: William deBuys combines history, anthropology, ethnography, and environmental and land use science to show how all of these threads weave through three cultures -- Pueblo indian, Hispano, and Anglo -- in the Sangre de Cristo range of northern New Mexico to create a unique and fascinating place. The book is scholarly in its scope, but very readable. From the haunting, almost surreal image he paints in the Preface, in which he describes stumbling across a downed airplane in the snowbound mountains of the Pecos Wilderness, to the vivid character study of an Hispano couple reminiscing about their courtship and wedding over sixty years ago, deBuys's writing is consistenly fine. Anyone interested in this part of the country, or anyone interested in how a specific landscape acts and is acted upon by three radically different cultures, will enjoy this book. Highly recommended