The Complete History Of New Mexico

"Compelling and complex . . . Strange and wonderful." —The New York Times Book Review, in praise of McIlvoy's previous fiction I am going to write about the state of New Mexico and put in some maps and stuff from the encyclopedia. My theme is the Don Juan Onate trail and the Jornada Del Muerto. But I might write some other important things which as it turns out my stepmother got angry about and said she wouldn't type this until my Dad said "Dammit now it is history" and told her maybe there weren't commas in those days. "The Complete History of New Mexico" is no ordinary research paper, and this is no ordinary collection of short stories. Eleven-year-old Chum's "history" unfolds over three distinctive and increasingly disturbing sections. He writes that "Coronado explored around and found Santa Fe in 1610"; that "William Becknell was tracking wagons over everyplace in 1821"; and that every day his best friend, Daniel, is afraid to go home. Kevin McIlvoy intersperses the title novella with equally distinctive stories set in New Mexico. Laura, a plain, overweight nurse, encounters a terrified young man on his way to the Vietnam War and takes matters into her own hands. Zach spends time with his "white-trash" relatives and finds love's terrible and true face. The Complete History of New Mexico is a stunningly original collection that will further McIlvoy's growing reputation.

Detailed information on every aspect of New Mexico's past.

A textbook tracing the history of New Mexico's land and people from the Ice Age to the present.

Since the earliest days of Spanish exploration and settlement, New Mexico has been known for lying off the beaten track. But this new history reminds readers that the world has been beating paths to New Mexico for hundreds of years, via the Camino Real, the Santa Fe Trail, several railroads, Route 66, the interstate highway system, and now the Internet. This first complete history of New Mexico in more than thirty years begins with the prehistoric cultures of the earliest inhabitants. The authors then trace the state’s growth from the arrival of Spanish explorers and colonizers in the sixteenth century to the centennial of statehood in 2012. Most historians have made the territory’s admission to the Union in 1912 as the starting point for the state’s modernization. As this book shows, however, the transformation from frontier province to modern state began with World War II. The technological advancements of the Atomic Era, spawned during wartime, propelled New Mexico to the forefront of scientific research and pointed it toward the twenty-first century. The authors discuss the state’s historical and cultural geography, the economics of mining and ranching, irrigation’s crucial role in agriculture, and the impact of Native political activism and tribe-owned gambling casinos. New Mexico: A History will be a vital source for anyone seeking to understand the complex interactions of the indigenous inhabitants, Spanish settlers, immigrants, and their descendants who have created New Mexico and who shape its future.

"This extensive volume presents New Mexico history from its prehistoric beginnings to the present in essays by forty-five prominent scholars and writers representing diverse disciplines including anthropology, Native American and Chicano studies, history and geography."--Page 4 of pbk. ed.

Every book has a history of its own and New Mexico: A Brief Multi-History could be considered one of the mini-sagas worthy of inclusion in this comprehensive chronology of people, places, and events that begins with precontact inhabitants of the Southwest. The more than four hundred years of recorded history includes information on all the groups living in our New Mexico, the oldest European colony in what is today the USA, and is "the way history should be written." Enriched by many illustrations, this inclusive Multi-History is the most comprehensive single volume available for the New Mexican sagas of "ordinary and extraordinary people, places, and events" from 1598 to the present. The general reader, history buffs, students, and scholars alike will be empowered by this ". . . basic resource for New Mexico and the Southwest" because of its panorama of "cultural and historical events, profile biographies, and penetrating comparative analysis . . . a timeless triumph."

New Mexico's Spanish legacy has informed the cultural traditions of one of the last states to join the union for more than four hundred years, or before the alluring capital of Santa Fe was founded in 1610. The fame the region gained from artist Georgia O'Keefe, writers Lew Wallace and D.H. Lawrence and pistolero Billy the Kid has made New Mexico an international tourist destination. But the Spanish annals also have enriched the Land of Enchantment with the factual stories of a superhero knight, the greatest queen in history, a saintly gent whose coffin periodically rises from the depths of the earth and a mysterious ancient map. Join author Ray John de Aragón as he reveals hidden treasure full of suspense and intrigue.

Although their total numbers in New Mexico were never large, blacks arrived with Spanish explorers and settlers and played active roles in the history of the territory and state. Here, Bruce Glasrud assembles the best information available on the themes, events, and personages of black New Mexico history. The contributors portray the blacks who accompanied Cabeza de Vaca, Coronado and de Vargas and recount their interactions with Native Americans in colonial New Mexico. Chapters on the territorial period examine black trappers and traders as well as review the issue of slavery in the territory and the blacks who accompanied Confederate troops and fought in the Union army during the Civil War in New Mexico. Eventually blacks worked on farms and ranches, in mines, and on railroads as well as in the military, seeking freedom and opportunity in New Mexico’s wide open spaces. A number of black towns were established in rural areas. Lacking political power because they represented such a small percentage of New Mexico’s population, blacks relied largely on their own resources and networks, particularly churches and schools.