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Rating: 
Summary: Getting under the hood
Review: Everyone always loves the West -- people hike the mountains for adventure, they hide out in the small towns when they're broke, and they buy ranchettes when they have money. The West is like a big old classic car that symbolizes something dependable and that people love to get in and hit the road -- the loooong road. "The Natural West" is for those brave enough to get under the hood and see how that car operates."Environmental History" is a fairly recent discipline, coming out of conventional history meeting ecology and the changing understanding of what a human being really is. Dan Flores is a hip guy with a smart take on the whole field. He's out there hiking, taking photos (they're in the book), running his wolf-dog, building his adobe house, and fighting the exotic weeds on his acreage -- and all the time he's thinking, "How does this work? How does all this fit together?" Not that he will hand you a lot of predigested answers. This book, broken into chapters by region, is a tool kit, a beginner's manual, a map to the territory. It's a place to start getting under the hood and finding out how the motor really works. He's handed you all the clues. This is a book to keep on hand and return to. Every revisitation will reveal the beginning of a new trail.
Rating:
Summary: Getting under the hood
Review: Everyone always loves the West -- people hike the mountains for adventure, they hide out in the small towns when they're broke, and they buy ranchettes when they have money. The West is like a big old classic car that symbolizes something dependable and that people love to get in and hit the road -- the loooong road. "The Natural West" is for those brave enough to get under the hood and see how that car operates. "Environmental History" is a fairly recent discipline, coming out of conventional history meeting ecology and the changing understanding of what a human being really is. Dan Flores is a hip guy with a smart take on the whole field. He's out there hiking, taking photos (they're in the book), running his wolf-dog, building his adobe house, and fighting the exotic weeds on his acreage -- and all the time he's thinking, "How does this work? How does all this fit together?" Not that he will hand you a lot of predigested answers. This book, broken into chapters by region, is a tool kit, a beginner's manual, a map to the territory. It's a place to start getting under the hood and finding out how the motor really works. He's handed you all the clues. This is a book to keep on hand and return to. Every revisitation will reveal the beginning of a new trail.
Rating: 
Summary: Provides a Paul Shepard Critique
Review: I would add to the previous review that the first chapter provides a critique of Paul Shepard's thesis that our society is broken, and will never become whole again until we return to our hunter-gatherer roots. I was interested in this because I am a big Paul Shepard fan and have not before seen a critique of his ideas from a source I can respect. I don't know that Flores even gets Shepard's ideas completely straight, and I wish he had devoted more space to his critique, but at least it's something to get you thinking about. I hope I haven't turned off those looking for a more straight-forward natural history of the West and southern plains, because except for that first chapter, that's what this book is- and it's excellent in its digestible chapters on components of this region.
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