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Spain in the Southwest: A Narrative History of Colonial New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and...
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Spain in the Southwest: A Narrative History of Colonial New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and...
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by John L. Kessell
Sales Rank : 236391
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Paperback: 462 pages
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press January 2003
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0806134844
ISBN-13: 978-0806134840
Product Dimensions:
10 x 7.1 x 1.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
It's hard to beat the early history of the American Southwest for its varied, colorful and historically important cast of characters. Soon after 1492, Spanish grandees, roughneck explorers, church friars, military troops, Anglo-American settlers, even African-Americans joined the native inhabitants who already peopled this land to create a new society. Kessell (professor emeritus at the University of New Mexico and author of Mission of Sorrows) chronicles their acts and relationships in a solid narrative that ends well into the national history of the U.S. when these Mexican borderlands became American territory. Covering 350 years of history is not easy, and Kessell brings the job off about as well as can be expected. He doesn't get us far into the heads of his historical figures or inside their societies and cultures, perhaps because there's so much to cover. But the result is a book that effectively draws together recent scholarship and tells in clear prose the required tale even if without grand themes or memorable vignettes. Kessell reminds us that what is now the U.S. was invaded from Mexico at about the same time as it was from the east by new peoples and that its history cannot be read simply as a tale of migration westward from the Atlantic. In an era of multiculturalism, therefore, this synthesis of the founding history of a large part of the nation not usually considered a seedbed of American culture is surely welcome. For a single narrative of its broad subject, the book serves as a useful and pleasing introduction, brought alive by many well-chosen illustrations.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
John L. Kessell’s "Spain in the Southwest" presents a fast-paced, abundantly illustrated history of the Spanish colonies that became the states of New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California. With an eye for human interest, Kessell tells the story of New Spain’s vast frontier--today’s American Southwest and Mexican North--which for two centuries served as a dynamic yet disjoined periphery of the Spanish empire.
Chronicling the period of Hispanic activity from the time of Columbus to Mexico’s independence from Spain in 1821, Kessell traces the three great swells of Hispanic exploration, encounter, and influence that rolled north from Mexico across the coasts and high deserts of the western borderlands. Throughout this sprawling historical landscape, Kessell treats grand themes through the lives of individuals. He explains the frequent cultural clashes and accommodations in remarkably balanced terms. Stereotypes, the author writes, are of no help. Indians could be arrogant and brutal, Spaniards caring, and vice versa. If we select the facts to fit preconceived notions, we can make the story come out the way we want, but if the peoples of the colonial Southwest are seen as they really were--more alike than diverse, sharing similar inconstant natures--then we need have no favorites.
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