{"product_id":"compass-american-guides-new-mexico","title":"Compass American Guides: New Mexico","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBook info:\u003c\/strong\u003e Compass American Guides: New Mexico (Paperback, 288 pages) – Compass America Guides, 1992. Language: English.\u003c\/p\u003e\n Created by local writers and photographers, Compass American Guides are the ultimate insider's guides, providing in-depth coverage of the history, culture and character of America's most spectacular destinations. Covering everything there is to see and do as well as choice lodging and dining, these gorgeous full-color guides are perfect for new and longtime residents as well as vacationers who want a deep understanding of the region they're visiting.Outstanding color photography, plus a wealth of archival imagesTopical essays and literary extractsDetailed color mapsGreat ideas for things to see and doCapsule reviews of hotels and restaurants  \n\n                                         Editorial Reviews                   From the Inside Flap   Created by local writers and photographers, Compass American Guides are the ultimate insider's guides, providing in-depth coverage of the history, culture and character of America's most spectacular destinations. Covering everything there is to see and do as well as choice lodging and dining, these gorgeous full-color guides are perfect for new and longtime residents as well as vacationers who want a deep understanding of the region they're visiting.\u003cbr\u003eOutstanding color photography, plus a wealth of archival imagesTopical essays and literary extractsDetailed color mapsGreat ideas for things to see and doCapsule reviews of hotels and restaurants           Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.   INTRODUCTION\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNew Mexico's magic has been intriguing visitors for centuries. Its natural beauty immediately \u003cbr\u003ecaptivates those who see it, and its elusive, indefinable character enriches all those who let it in. \u003cbr\u003eSpacious skies and vistas, magical light, and the sense of this place's purity have all been named as \u003cbr\u003ethe latent quality that has attracted travelers and settlers, artists and scientists, who've come in \u003cbr\u003esearch of treasure, tangible and intangible.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn prehistoric times, Native Americans hunted game in New Mexico's mountains and farmed along its \u003cbr\u003eriver banks. Pueblo Indians expressed their reverential relationship with the land through flat-roofed \u003cbr\u003eearthen architecture, drawings on rock faces, and rhythmic chants and dances. Spanish explorers \u003cbr\u003efollowed, first in search of gold, then souls. The two cultures clashed, often violently. But \u003cbr\u003eeventually they came to tolerate each other and even to share their traditions. Pueblo Indians passed \u003cbr\u003eon their innovative uses for chile, beans, and corn, the main ingredients of what ironically has come \u003cbr\u003eto be known as Mexican food. The Spanish passed on their skill at metal work, which the Indians \u003cbr\u003eincorporated into intricate jewelry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the later half of the nineteenth century, determined groups of \"Anglo\" settlers began arriving \u003cbr\u003evia the Santa Fe Trail, bringing to New Mexico a third culture -- Victorian, technologically emerging. \u003cbr\u003eIn the early twentieth century, a new wave of immigrants of Italian, Lebanese, German, Irish, and \u003cbr\u003eRussian descent -- also \"Anglos\" in New Mexican parlance -- came to set up shops or work in coal, \u003cbr\u003esilver, and gold mines across the state. The Anglos may have been the last of the three main cultural groups \u003cbr\u003eto arrive, but they became the most influential. They mined the mountains for gold and precious metals, \u003cbr\u003eand uncovered vast deposits of coal, oil, and natural gas. They brought the railroad, the highway, and \u003cbr\u003ethe atomic bomb. They came to capture the state's magic -- on canvas, in photographs, in their souls. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe state's Spanish community, once comprised mainly of descendants of the original settlers who \u003cbr\u003ecame via Mexico, has expanded to include thousands of new Hispanic, or Spanish-speaking, immigrants \u003cbr\u003efrom Central and South America. Today's Hispanics are responsible for a vitality and sensuality that \u003cbr\u003ehas become part of New Mexico's mystique. Religion still permeates this culture and nearly every town \u003cbr\u003ehonors its patron saint once a year in an exuberant fiesta. This sensitivity carries through in the \u003cbr\u003eimperfect sloping walls of adobe buildings, hand-punched tinwork, and strains of melodic corridas \u003cbr\u003e(love songs) that waft from open doorways. Carved bultos and intricately painted retablos once adorned \u003cbr\u003eonly church altars and walls, but now are found in gift shops and galleries.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eToday, New Mexico's Indians often straddle two worlds: teaching math to fifth graders or arguing \u003cbr\u003ethe First Amendment before a federal judge during the week, then returning to the reservation on \u003cbr\u003eweekends to participate in traditional dances where they exchange their button-down clothes for \u003cbr\u003efeathered headdresses and beaded moccasins.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe state's landscape is as varied as its cultures. The Rio Grande is the lifeblood for much of \u003cbr\u003ethis arid land, and it serves as the natural east-west dividing line as it snakes through the mountainous \u003cbr\u003enorth, skirting Albuquerque and providing the lifeline for the agricultural southwest before flowing \u003cbr\u003einto Texas at El Paso. Away from the river, pine and spruce forests blanket much of northern New \u003cbr\u003eMexico. There you'll find pristine trout streams, bountiful hunting grounds, and world-class ski \u003cbr\u003eslopes. A small section of the vast Navajo Reservation covers the northwestern corner of the state, \u003cbr\u003eand continues into neighboring Arizona. In the southwest is the 3.3-million-acre Gila National Forest, \u003cbr\u003eonce home to the Mimbres Indians, known for their distinctive black-on-white pottery. East of the \u003cbr\u003emountains lies the irrigated Mesilla Valley, with acres of green chile, cotton, and onions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the vast plains of eastern New Mexico, lumbering herds of cattle and bands of sheep share \u003cbr\u003ewindswept grasslands. Dryland farming has prospered in pockets of the Llano Estacado (Staked Plain), \u003cbr\u003ea western extension of the Great Plains that covers much of eastern New Mexico. To the west rise the \u003cbr\u003eSacramento Mountains, home to the Mescalero Apaches. One of the world's greatest natural wonders \u003cbr\u003espreads out in massive rooms beneath a limestone ridge at Carlsbad Caverns.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNew Mexico's cities are small, with the exception of Albuquerque, which holds one-third of the \u003cbr\u003estate's people and serves as its economic and education center. A cursory glance might fail to \u003cbr\u003edistinguish it from any other spread-out Western metropolis, but most residents agree it's an \u003cbr\u003eunusually congenial place to live:  traffic jams are few, winters are mild and summers dry, and \u003cbr\u003efriendly smiles abound.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSixty miles (96 km) north of Albuquerque, the state capital of Santa Fe huddles in the shelter of \u003cbr\u003ethe Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Here, narrow streets wind among centuries-old adobe buildings, and \u003cbr\u003edirt roads are considered assets in the city's nicer neighborhoods. Students of acupuncture, massage, \u003cbr\u003eand natural healing live among longtime Hispanic residents and Indian artisans.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's not a coincidence that New Mexico is known as the Land of Enchantment. The spells it casts \u003cbr\u003eare many and varied. For those who haven't yet experienced it, all it takes is to cross its borders \u003cbr\u003eto enter New Mexico's magical embrace.                                           ","brand":"Nancy Harbert","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46068619968746,"sku":"9781878867063","price":6.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0714\/5301\/6298\/files\/81NE6ndcd8L._SL1500.jpg?v=1781173876","url":"https:\/\/textbookme.store\/products\/compass-american-guides-new-mexico","provider":"TextbookMe","version":"1.0","type":"link"}