The Nature of Desert Nature (Southwest Center Series)

In this refreshing collection, one of our best writers on desert places, Gary Paul Nabhan, challenges traditional notions of the desert. Beautiful, reflective, and at times humorous, Nabhan's extended essay also called "The Nature of Desert Nature" reveals the complexity of what a desert is and can be. He passionately writes about what it is like to visit a desert and what living in a desert looks like when viewed through a new frame, turning age-old notions of the desert on their heads.



Nabhan invites a prism of voices--friends, colleagues, and advisors from his more than four decades of study of deserts--to bring their own perspectives. Scientists, artists, desert contemplatives, poets, and writers bring the desert into view and investigate why these places compel us to walk through their sands and beneath their cacti and acacia. We observe the spines and spears, stings and songs of the desert anew. Unexpected. Surprising. Enchanting. Like the desert itself, each essay offers renewed vocabulary and thoughtful perceptions.



The desert inspires wonder. Attending to history, culture, science, and spirit, The Nature of Desert Nature celebrates the bounty and the significance of desert places.



Contributors

Thomas M. Antonio

Homero Aridjis

James Aronson

Tessa Bielecki

Alberto Búrquez Montijo

Francisco Cantú

Douglas Christie

Paul Dayton

Alison Hawthorne Deming

Father David Denny

Exequiel Ezcurra

Thomas Lowe Fleischner

Jack Loeffler

Ellen McMahon

Rubén Martínez

Curt Meine

Alberto Mellado Moreno

Paul Mirocha

Gary Paul Nabhan

Ray Perotti

Larry Stevens

Stephen Trimble

Octaviana V. Trujillo

Benjamin T. Wilder

Andy Wilkinson

Ofelia Zepeda