A great book, fun to read. Its a real eye opener - with messages we all need to take with us. We're so dependent on the pollinators yet their work is so transparent to us. This book lays it all out. Its quite timeless in both the message and the great info on different types of insects and animals. You can learn a lot in this book on a lot of different levels

Reading this book I felt as though my basic education was flawed by my not having been taught the supreme importance of the insect world to all life on earth. Each page presented fascinating, sometimes alarming information, about our natural world that I had never seen, though it is always right in front of me. The most enlightening book I have read in years!

Like Silent Spring, this book surprizes and alarms. It is well written, rarely bogging down, and opens new ways of understanding with almost every chapter - the perils of patchwork preservation, the honeybee as an invading exotic, the concept of nectar corridors for long distance pollinators. Well done indeed.

Certainly this book is "about" the following: Pima Indians Ethnobotany Gila River Valley (N.M. and Ar Native American Anthropology Nature / Field Guide Books Science Botany Native American Studies - Tribes Plants...

...but it is really a glowing absorption of the essences of life as only those who still live in what's left of this earth's eden can truly and fully know. Rea perhaps brings this through to the reader better than any writer, poet, or other artist in history. This book is not just a "gem" or some other catchy adjective from the "How to Review a Book" manual--it is a true treasure, a legacy more valuable to the priceless "things" of life than all the dusty gold from King Tut's tomb. It is a ocean of pearls cast before the multitudes, hoping, perhaps, to snare a fertile, vigorous mind or two... You will laugh deeply. You will cry unrepentantly. You will revel in the invigorating joy of discovery. No matter who you are or how you make your way in this world, the spirit of this book will touch that secret something in you that you thought you would never find anywhere else...

I just want to let people know that At the Desert's Green Edge was awarded the Klinger Book Award by the Society for Economic Botany. This is according to an announcement in the members' publication for the San Diego Natural History Museum, where Dr. Rea is a research associate.

This book is incredible -- an honest and sensitive portrait of life in the changing Sonoran desert. I picked it up yesterday and haven't been able to stop looking at it since. Apart from the photography, there are two wonderful essays. In the second, "Another Country", Thomas E. Sheridan tells of falling in love with a place in a way that speaks intimately to my own experience of and passion for Mexico. But I'd better stop before I give a whole dissertation... Buy this book! You won't regret it.

Superb black and white photographs, with accompanying essays, concentrate on ordinary people. The result transcends its geographic region; this is about people who just happen to live in Sonora. Winner, Border Regional Library Association's 1998 Southwest Book Award.

Large, crisp, vivid photos presented by Arizona Highways. Each wildflower includes information such as: region, elevation, blooming season, relatives and more. As an avid Arizona hiker I get excited when I am able to spot these beauties on the trail. The format is magazine size. All pages are thick and glossy Arizona Highways quality. - Beautiful!

Quite simply, read this book. It turns the subject of "ethnoecology" (sounds dull, doesn't it?!) into a poetic duet of plants and the relationship native peoples developed with them. Nabhan, in this book, profiles several individual species (found in his beloved Sonoran desert) as intimately as a biographer would profile an admired personage. The illustrations are delicate and so accurate you could go out and identify each species at first sight. I became enchanted, and wistful, at Nabhan's accounts of ingenious interactions of Southwest Amerinds and useful plants that allowed both to survive and thrive in such a harsh region. Wistful, because many of these vital prehistoric resources, such as panic grass and sandfood, are unknown to modern peoples, and virtually extinct. And with them, human ability to survive such harsh landscapes without radically modifying them is going extinct as well.
From Nabhan's perspective (in all his books), native peoples of a region are not interlopers, but another component of a balanced local ecology; the ecological diversity & resource potentials lost when the First World imposes foreign ecologies on regions is a subtext of all Nabhan's writings.
Each chapter of "Gathering the Desert" stands by itself; but together they lead to a conclusion of incomparable adaptation to what Euro-Americans see as a cactus "wasteland". I assign readings from this book, and the entire book, to my college classes in Southwest Indians and ecological anthropology. However, it has much wider appeal, and to call it "highly readable" is an understatement. I respect Nabhan's careful academic research and his commitment to actually going into the field to experience the peoples and the natural environment directly. I admire even more his ability to make what is very commonly a dull reporting of "what people ate" into a literary symphony. All his books are excellent; this is the best of the best.

If you know how creosote smells after a desert rain, this book is for you. If you don't know, this book will help you to understand the appeal of the desert.

A nice look into the Papago lifestyle of the '80s, some history, some desert lore, some naturalist bent.

A nice read, recommended.

I worked out in the Sonora for a few years and learned to love its wide open, quiet spaces, the sizzle of a cicada and the smell right before thunder breaks and rain falls in big warm drops.

Living in Seattle, when I long for open grey-white land, the shade of the palo verde, the shuffle of a zebra-tail, I go down to the basement and find this book. Pure magic! Culture, nature and philosophy, this book has it all.

Wonderful! One of the most eloquent and insightful books ever written on deserts, Native Americans, agriculture, etc., etc. A treat for both the mind and the heart...

Mr Nabhan took us on an extrardinary journey through St Francis county. Entertaining and educating on each page. Then the big let down in the epilogue, as he rejects everything St Francis stood for. St Francis loved nature and the animals, but only because they are God's creation. St Francis's every moment was spent glorifing God. He loved all animals as an extension of his love for Jesus, nothing more, nothing less. Mr Nabhan totally misread St Francis.

If, one week ago, someone told me that I'd be reading & loving a book subtitled "An American Naturalist in Italy," I'd have laughed.

This is a witty and charming book (a very quick read) which will get to you even if you are NOT a naturalist---even if, like I, you hardly know what a naturalist is or does!

Nabhan, with a friend, hiked through the Tuscan and Umbrian countryside, interviewing natives and chronicling his discoveries and stories: an old farmer shares wine and his knowledge of how to find truffles simply because Nabhan was walking to Assisi and the farmer was named after Saint Francis; an elderly couple waltzes in a town square and becomes, in Nabhan's words, "the dance, itself;" another man explains to the author why grapes need to be trellised & how beautiful they are when alternated with maples; a woman explains how a she-wolf was tamed and fed by town residents. The tales are all about the land and the people who have lived there for centuries. And they are all fascinating.....simple, true stories that will help one believe, again, in the human race.

This book is a perfect companion to that other fine book of Italian (i.e. human) discovery: "Under The Tuscan Sun" by Frances Mayes.

I'm ordering several copies to give as gifts! This book touched my heart.

This book wasn't quite what I expected. Nabhan promises a sensual tale of a year with local foods and instead wanders around from tales of anti-WTO battles in Seattle to genetically engineered crops in Illinois to monarch butterflies in Mexico. While I assume this is designed to show us the interconnectivity of man to all species, it makes for a seriously unfocused narrative. While the sections of the book are nominally divided by seasons, it's hard to find a thread that weaves it's way all the way through this crazy quilt of a book. It's also light on sensuality, although perhaps I was subconsciously envisioning tales of eating local foods off the smooth, supple thighs of young Papago women. I kept wanting him to cut loose in the narrative, break some rules, slash some tires, shotgun some processed food displays instead of meekly writing letters to Congressmen and the FDA. Have you ever seen what a 12-guage shell can do to a nice display of Hostess products?

Although a bit restrained, Nabhan and his crew fight many admirable battles and he has some insights on the raping of the seas by multi-national seafood harvesters and the danger of genetically engineered crops. He believes that we can heal ourselves and the planet by disengaging from the 99 cent value meal and reconnecting with the earth and its creatures. That's assuming the 280 million people now crowding the country are even remotely interested in such a proposition, and something tells me they are not. Nor is this book likely to ignite their hidden passions for local foods.

Gary Paul Nabham has really put together a beautiful and inspiring apologia for the emerging local, cultural, slow food philosophy. Like a simmering stew, the book bubbles over with diveristy, as the author runs in and out of the poetic, historical, cultural and academic. Whereas others reviewers have found fault with the seemingly "unfocused" nature of the book, I was happily entertained. From cover to cover, the subject matter remains fresh and suprising. Some of the foods you can expect to encounter include boiled venison, baked rabbit, grilled corvina, tomatillo consommes, squash souffles, tepary bean burritos wrapped in mesquite tortillas, freshly picked and lightly steamed lamb quarters, purslane, tansy mustards, cress, prickly pear punch, mistletoe and Mormon tea. You will encounter organpipe cactus jam, stewed pumpkin, pinole, creosote bush salve, jojoba oil, damiana tea and pit roasted agaves - or "tatemada" - an ancient tradition the author and some local Indians revived, among others. Although the book runs thin on recipes (there are none), it liberally bastes philosophy: "If food is the sumptuous sea of energy we dive into and swim through every day, I have lived but one brief moment leaping like a flying fish and catching a glimmering glimpse of that sea roiling all around us. And then just as quickly, I splashed back beneath its surface, to be overmore immersed in what effortlessly buoys us up." When Nabham is not introducing you old, now by-and-large forgotten foods and the cultures they come from, he is reminding you of the pitfalls of the emerging global marketplace: for example, "the average American brings home nearly 3,300 pounds of foodstuffs each year for his or her consumption...much of it never eaten. It is nearly two-and-a-half time the weight of what most of our contempories in other regions of the world consume, and much of it comes from their farmlands." He also reminds us that, with each passing season, we are losing more top soil, more biodiversity, and more of the foods that help us keep us strong and healthy. A very important book that is also a pleasure to read. On a scale of deliciousness, I give it a peach cobbler.

Nabham delivers important insights on the health our nation's food supply. Combining hard facts with eloquent personal narrative and sensual descriptions, he creates a captivating text that is accessible to all readers.

Nabham brings forth some very salient (and often frightening) points about the destruction of arable farm lands, the uncertainty of genetically engineered seed stocks, the loss of native biodiversity, and the damaging effects of a modern diet, among other topics.

I recommend the book highly and ask the author to follow up with a very specific series of guidelines for readers who want to take steps to eat locally and improve our nation's agricultural sustainability.

Gary Nabhan and Stephen Trimble have penned a fine collection of essays on how children perceive and play in their environment. References are made to psychological studies that support a child's need for wild places, but the real value I see in this book comes from the authors' own anecdotal experiences with their children. If you are a parent of small children, you will especially enjoy the ideas you will get for places to take children to play and explore. Read this book and you will begin to learn why children need to experience wild places. And why, as adults, if we share the "hands-on" experiences with our kids, our own connection to the landscape becomes more deeply rooted.

At first glance, this book seems to be another in a long line of published material telling parents how to be good parents. But it really seemed like a personal reflection of what makes life great through a child's eyes. Instead of trying to raise a child through adult methods, this book shows that through simply remembering what being a child was and why it was fun is enough to help you understand what your child is thinking. Through this understanding, you will become a great parent. I was very pleased with my purchase and recommend this book to anyone that has had any contact with children.

Paul Nabhan's latest book is a delight to read. His clear writing style and effective way of illustrating important points gives the reader a pleasant break from the more technical books on the topic of seed evolution and dispersion. But don't be deceived by its ease of reading, the book is full of facts about early native agricultural practices in North and Central America, contains warnings about our loss of natural vegetation, especially rain forests, and tells of our rapid loss of plant diversity.

Dr. Nabhan is the cofounder of an organization called Native Seeds and is currently Assistant Director of the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona. In these dual roles he has had ample opportunity to observe what is happening to our natural vegetation and to record how the diversity of plants in our world continues to shrink at an alarming rate.

His book is divided into a series of chapters each with names intended to draw the reader's interest. Examples include: "Turning Foxholes into Compost Heaps," "Drowning in a Shallow Gene Pool," and "Invisible Erosion." Each of his 12 chapters focuses on an important point. The first one presents an interesting history of plant evolution from the earliest Paleozoic times through the late Cenozoic and explains how the large, plant gene pool created the wonderful diversity we have all come to enjoy. In the next several chapters Dr. Nabhan first addresses the great diversity of plants found in forests of the wet and dry tropics and next speaks about how this great diversity led to the emergence of many cultigens we now depend upon for our staples. He also points with alarm to how rapidly this diversity is being lost as large areas are converted to agricultural lands or are clear cut for their lumber. Other chapters focus on the need for saving examples of seeds from plants that are becoming extinct and the advantages in tropical areas of using local plant species and local farming techniques instead of introduced hybrid plants and "modern" agricultural techniques. In later chapters Dr. Nabhan chronicles the demise of wild rice in the Great Lakes region, the near loss of a species of rare gourd in Florida, and why the production of maize in many areas of the northern Great Plains is not nearly as great today as it was in past generations. Finally, he offers a word of caution to plant geneticists saying that they could learn a lot from looking at the problems associated with the raising of domestic turkeys.

The main theme of Dr. Nabhan's book focuses on the need for plant diversity and how the maintaining of a wide gene pool for each species is critical for the survival of each species. All of this, he cautions, has direct effects upon mankind because many of these plants form elements of our primary food supply. Throughout the book the author inserts brief warnings for the reader to ponder. On page 27, for example, the author notes the prevailing attitude among many plant geneticists. He quotes one of them as saying, "If we need rare strains to breed a stronger variety of grain in the event of an epidemic, we go out and collect them." The problem, as Dr. Nabhan notes, is that already for many plants there are no longer wild strains to use.