Description
Book SynopsisTracing the building and erasing of past landscapes to make some of them more visible in the present,
Peoples of a Sonoran Desert Oasis reveals how colonial legacies became embedded in national parks - and points to the possibility that such legacies might be undone and those lost landscapes remade.
Trade Review“Peoples of a Sonoran Desert Oasis gets to the heart of one of the great debates in the history of conservation: whether there are any true ‘wildernesses’—pristine natural areas untouched by human hands—and, when we set aside protected areas like national parks, whether we should remove evidence of human occupation. The author does a marvelous job weaving O’odham oral traditions and histories into this historical account of Quitobaquito.”—Thomas E. Sheridan, author of
Arizona: A History“With engaging prose, Jared Orsi excavates the layers of Indigenous history that underlie this seemingly ‘untouched’ nature reserve, details the environmental and cultural devastation of an increasingly hardened border, challenges the National Park Service—and us—to reckon with its colonial past, and points the way toward reconciliation with the O’odham peoples. The result is a fascinating study of a little-known place in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.”—Marsha Weisiger, author of
Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country“Peoples of a Sonoran Desert Oasis provides a trenchant analysis of how cultural heritage, modern management policies challenging that heritage, and local to international forces combined to shape a small, contested desert oasis. Quitobaquito is a tiny and unfamiliar space with lessons for the world.”—Lary M. Dilsaver, author of
Preserving the Desert: A History of Joshua Tree National Park
