Arizona Books

The Arizona Rangers were a special force created to assist jurisdictional lawmen at the time when outlaws and criminals outnumbered lawmen in the Arizona Territory. They served from 1901 to 1909.
This book is excellent written and completed with several pictures.
It is a must have for everyone, who is interested in the old west history of the grand canyon state Arizona. It is the Story of the three AZ Ranger Captains BURTON C. MOSSMAN, THOMAS H. RYNNING and HARRY C. WHEELER and those men who helped to pave the way to statehood.

Western historian Jane Eppinga presents Arizona Sheriffs: Badges and Bad Men, a rousing history of how Arizona's law enforcement personnel have combated crime from the 1880s to the 1990s. Illustrated with occasional vintage black-and-white photographs of real-life Western lawmen, Arizona Sheriffs covers historical events such as the Pleasant Valley War, the sheriff as executioner, manhunts then and now, the connection between rodeo and lawmen, sheriffs who became corrupt, and much more. Written for readers of all backgrounds, Arizona Sheriffs is an exciting slice of Arizona state history, especially recommended for public library collections and American West history shelves.

Have you ever wondered what your hometown will look like 100 years from now, long after you are gone? Allen Dutton and Diane Bunting have offered this gift to Arizonans. As a native Arizonan, I have always been enamored of the Old West Arizona. Dutton and Bunting obtained photographs of many Arizona communities from the 19th century, and returned to set their tripod on the exact same place 100 years later. The results are startling. Some towns have become ghosts of their previous glory, while others have thrived beyond recognition. Still others remain relatively untouched by time.

I should comment on the remarkable quality of the photography. Dutton and Bunting used an 8 x 10 format, which make the landscape scenes come alive in black and white. Their technical mastery is evident in their work.

This work is a fascinating coffee table book, and a must for any Arizonan! Old west buffs will enjoy it too.

Good all around trail guide. Includes accurate GPS coordinates. Trail ratings are ok. The trip odometer settings are great if you don't have a GPS.

Good all around trail guide. Nice trip odometer listings for if you do not have a GPS.

Good all around trail guide. Includes accurate GPS coordinates. Trail ratings are ok. The trip odometer settings are great if you don't have a GPS.

Good all around trail guide. Nice trip odometer listings for if you do not have a GPS.

This is an excellent snapshot of places to go to experience the waterways of Arizona. A well documented little book! I recommend to anyone.

For those who wonder what they are seeing on a casual walk in the desert, this book is very welcome. It profiles 50 wildflowers and makes mention of the locale of dozens more in the course of the text on the 50 hikes. In this way, one can make flower identification moving from the book to the trail or the other way around. The photos, over 100 in all, are of very high quality.

The author, Christine Maxa, is well-informed and concise. By the time you've read through a few of the hikes and profiles, you realize she's every bit as at ease with wildlife as her portrait with an elephant would imply. She shows not only a familiarity with the flowers, but also a wide knowledge of the pollinators and predators and parasites that dwell among them: the cochineal insect, source of the rich red dye prized for centuries by aboriginal Americans and Europeans alike; hummingbirds, which carry pollen on their heads; bees, which carry it on every part of their bodies; forest rangers, which carry the full force of the federal government when charging the spectacular parking fees described in the "Special Considerations" section of the hiking guides.

One of the nice things about learning about desert flowers is that there are relatively few of them, so that one can become well-versed and appear authoritative in a relatively short time. Even so, surprises abound. American carrot, which appears on many of the hikes, is a real carrot of the genus Daucus, though Maxa does not say whether the root is edible. Scorpion weed and rattlesnake weed, despite their ominous names, are benign and pretty, while larkspur, a beautiful type of delphinium, is highly poisonous.

This guide's greatest strength, fittingly enough, is its information. I had wondered in the past whether teddy bear cholla and jumping cholla were one and the same plant. A quick trip to the handy 2-page index of common and scientific names confirmed that it was. This sort of detail may seem simple, but it's often surprisingly hard to come by, given the widespread fear among Americans of Latin binomial nomenclature. And despite the title's reference to Arizona desert, the flowers discussed are by no means restricted to that state. Eleven years ago in the California part of Death Valley I noticed a widespread infestation of a parasite that resembled a tangle of orange string. Thanks to this book I finally know what it was: Dodder (p.134), a plant related to morning glory that lacks leaves and roots and chlorophyll. Of further interest in the profile are two common names for dodder that at first glance seem to describe mutually exclusive traits: love vine and strangleweed.

This Book is a must if you like hiking mountains and live in Arizona or want to visit the state. The book is broken down into areas of Arizona. In the discriptions of the mountains Bob tells how the mountain got its name. He is very detailed about how to get to the top and how to get there and tells if you need the USGS 7.5 minute map for that mountain. This book is not restricted to just mountains, but he also tells how to hike and how to get to some hills. There are quite a few off trail hikes in the book as well. He does not restrict the book to just trail hikes and roads. The only dissapointment in the book is that he did not cover any mountains is Sedona, Verde Valley and did not include much in the Prescott erea. But other then that he shows a wide variety of mountains across the state.