El Llano Estacado: Exploration and Imagination on the High Plains of Texas and New Mexico, 1536–1860 Paperback – September 12, 2013

Terrific service! Very quick delivery!Book in very good shape!

As a former resident of Portales, NM this book brought back so many great memories of life on the Llano. The horizon to horizon views, smell of mesquite after a summer rain storm, the very friendly people. Highly recommend this to anyone who has visited or lived on the Llano.

I grew up in part of the Llano and loved, loved it. Was it desolate? Yes, but also beautiful. One had the feeling of being able to see forever. It could be desolate and lonely, obscure all vision with blinding sandstorms, freezing cold with “Blue Northers” and magnificently beautiful when wildflowers blanketed the sunscape after a shower of rain. To learn so much I never knew made this a wonderful,excellent book. Thank you!

Great Texas history!

a good read about the llano

My husband loves this book. It's well written and easy to read.

We were going on a trip to see the Llano Estacado and the canyon in west Texas.This book gave the trip so much dimension and understanding at how hard the life was for the explorers and the pioneers in this harsh land.Very cleverly written,holds one attention. Wonderful

This book is a study of the high tableland, singular and remote, which extends over 50000 square miles of western Texas and Eastern New Mexico. The Staked Plain bears a mystique, one of those areas where history and imagination combine to suggest both myth and legend. (the Powder River country in northern Wyoming is another.) It is imagination which is strong here: the role of myth, now we perceive this unique environment and how it has affected all who attempted to make sense of it. The mostly flat plain is a distinctive bioregion which reaches from the Canadian river in the north to the Edwards Plateau in the south and from the Pecos river in the west to the fabled canyons in the east, such the Palo Duro and Blanco canyons. A remarkable series of explorers, Spanish, French, Mexican and Anglo-Americans have attempted its expanses.The first section is a detective story on the lost Coronado Trail - where did the Spanish go in 1541? What route did they take? Understanding what they saw and how they remembered it in their writings is one of Morris's main themes and provides engrossing reading. The second part studies the three centuries of exploration and imagination following Coronado, and ask such questions as why did the Comancheros call this realm El Llano Estacado. Cattle trails crossed the southern tip of the area and Comanches established livestock trails across northern parts. Part 3 gives a revisionist counterpoint to the Hispanic geographic enquiry and analyses the remantic discovery of the area in the Anglo imagination. Understanding the romancing of the place advances our knowledge of how different cultures perceive the same strange landscape. In the last part the author covers the trails of the Anglo explorers such as James Abert, Randolph Marcy and John Pope. This arid, remote and difficult landscape was an immense terra incognita and was branded uninhabitble, a place apart until objective speculation began to indicate the commercial possibilities of settlement and civilisation. There was also its lure as a frontier land.The perceptual approach by experiencers of the region throughout history is felt strongly in the narrative. The success of this award winning and beautifully produced book lies in its combination of scholarship with an interdisciplinary style - and with an imaginative style most suitable to this vast region itself.It receives the strongest recommendation.