If you can get this book, buy it. This book is well written, and thought it falls short in some respects, it is likely to hold your interest with its information. Geckos and the lizards covered in the book are fascinating, and this book proves it.

As with the vast majority, but not all, books that bite off huge taxonomic groups this one fails to provide detailed updated information on this group but does provide an overview and excellent illustrations. If you desire more than the basics purchase Johnsgard's books or some other title that limits its treatment. If its the basics that you desire its worth the money.

This book is basically a register of all buildings used as field hospitals after the battle of Gettysburg, also including a description of the large hospital at Camp Letterman. It has pictures of the sites where available and gives an overview of what took place at each one, who owned it, what troops may have been there and what surgeons were stationed there. The depth of available information varies, of course. I found that the maps were on a scale too small to be very helpful -- for example, I was unable to determine what route a soldier would have taken coming off Culp's Hill and walking to the Picking farm. The book would have been vastly improved by a chapter on the type of wounds suffered during the battle and the medical care of the time; some anecdotes and factoids are given but it's really not enough. As it is, the book is probably best read as an adjunct with Patterson's Debris of Battle and possibly Gangrene and Glory or some similar work on medical treatment.

I was expecting an intelligent, informed checklist with pertinent information about the region's reptile fauna. Instead it reads more like a children's book. Grainy outdated pics and a measly one or two lines of description about each animal. There are many more books on this subject that are more informed and thorough in their approach. Just my opinion though.

An especially useful guide for those who spend a lot of time in the outdoors and are located in the Southwestern USA. The book has color pictures, which makes it easier to identify the animals that are encountered. Also included are prevention tips when dealing with certain animals, and also some emergency methods for the possibily of a snake bite. Overall this is a very good book for identfying snakes, lizards and turtles of the southwest.

Before I talk about this book, I think everyone here should understand that the collective essays in Contested Landscape were written as part of a college class at the University of Utah by graduate and undergraduate students over a two quarter period in 1997. This book showcases a wonderful opportunity for students and for creating a piece of work which the wilderness and multiple use movement could utilize.

However, Contested Landscape does not quite capture the passion behind the debate of wilderness in the west, and it does not exactly examine wilderness issues from all ventures: there are three sides to the issue: those that are 'pro' wilderness, those that are against wilderness, and the writers. (which seek a unified, balanced, and compromised approach) Within the wilderness movement in Washington state, there are so many multi-factions of each side that the result is that the movement and the debate is not a polarized black and white, but a collision of two shades of grey in the quest to tackle public lands issues. Subsequent research by others associated with the movement will show that this is true for many states dealing with public lands issues. In Contested Landscape however, the sides are painted to be such unified opposites, it hardly seems real.

Utah is the only other state in the West (besides Hawaii) that has less then 1.5 million acres of wilderness in the state. (it has only 750,000) It is because of the horrendous politics (both national and local) that the state has such a low acreage of wilderness compared with Utah's 'western' neighbors: but this notion is not explored anywhere in the book. Contested Landscape paints a picture that the wilderness the state has is a reflection of the politics, of which every western state has. While there is growing difference between rural and urban cultures in western states, the politics of each western state are so uniquely different, Contested Landscape is not an appropriate reference to regional or local wilderness politics by any means: I could not hold Contested Landscape as a means of evidence in an argument if I wished to espouse on the issues of low lying old growth in roadless areas in Washington State.

The book also lacks a sense of place. Angry ranchers and wilderness advocates with no backdrop to put them against. Despite the beautiful picture on the cover, there is nothing else to describe in words or pictures the beauty and landscape of Utah. Thus, you would have no idea what these people are fighting over if you were to pick up the book knowing nothing about Utah. No mention of the shrub-steppe ecosystem, the Great Salt lake, The Rockies, or anything else distinctive. This is a critical failure of the book: to not showcase passion with a sense of place.

Also, because the majority of the federal land is BLM land, there is constant discussion about this agency and anything else regarding wilderness. This can make the book read like a BLM ranger's handbook, with so much technical and bureaucratic lingo regarding range management and what not, it can become dizzying (hat's off to the kid's that had to work on this stuff)

I must give credit to the students, though, they initiated and carried out a very difficult project, and the writing, while too rigid to be engaging and empowering, was of course required of them to I suppose, "make the grade." Out of this I hope some good experience came to each of them. As I understand it, the book did not go over well in Utah, as "both sides" (as the author's constantly refer to a loose confederation of people) opposed the compromise solutions advocated in the book. If you would like a truly interesting read with a good dose of wilderness politics, read Return of the Wild by Ted Kerasote.