American Oasis
By Kyle Paoletta
By Kyle Paoletta
By Kyle Paoletta
By Kyle Paoletta
By Kyle Paoletta
Read by Andrew Eiden
By Kyle Paoletta
Read by Andrew Eiden
Category: U.S. History | Science & Technology
Category: U.S. History | Science & Technology
Category: U.S. History | Science & Technology | Audiobooks
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$30.00
Jan 14, 2025 | ISBN 9780553387377
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Jan 14, 2025 | ISBN 9780553387384
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Jan 14, 2025 | ISBN 9780593947739
623 Minutes
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$30.00
Jan 14, 2025 | ISBN 9780553387377
-
Jan 14, 2025 | ISBN 9780553387384
-
Jan 14, 2025 | ISBN 9780593947739
623 Minutes
Buy the Audiobook Download:
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Praise
âA lively, thoughtful tour. . . . The portraits that emerge both enhance and poke holes in the stories the Southwest tells itself. . . . The chapter on Las Vegas is itself a small masterpiece that should be read by anyone seeking to understand a city that seems to defy comprehension.ââThe Los Angeles Times
â[Paoletta] understands that we underestimate and segregate the Southwest at our peril. No part of the country is immune from drought or reckless development. . . . âHow different would the contemporary Southwest be if, when Anglos arrived, theyâd simply accepted that the desert was hot?â he writes. Itâs a good question, and not a regional one â a whole country on a heating planet will have to reckon with it.ââThe Washington Post
âSprawling, ambitious, deeply researched.ââThe San Francisco Chronicle
âAmerican Oasis offers lessons for a hotter, drier world. . . . Paoletta takes readers on a virtual road trip around his native region, transporting us across hundreds of years and thousands of miles.â âAssociated Press
âPaints an illuminating and disturbing picture of our future. . . . Paoletta lays bare the common mythologies of the American west to highlight the regionâs dependency on water and the increasing desperation these cities face in the era of advancing climate change.ââChicago Review of Books
âAn indispensable regional history and an insightful consideration of how the Southwestâs experience may provide a blueprint for the future of the entire country.â âShelf Awareness
âImpressive. . . . Both a love letter and a warning, [American Oasis is] a fascinating look at a complicated corner of our country.â âColumbia Magazine
âPeppered with fascinating historical tidbits gleaned as Paoletta traverses the region and encounters colorful characters. . . . An enjoyable and immersive travelogue.â âPublishers Weekly
âAmerican Oasis helps us to understand our hotter, tougher future by showing us how people and civilizations have both thrived (and collapsed) in the desert Southwest over the last thousand years. Paolettaâs deep research and irrepressible personal passion describes a way forward in tune with what has come before.â âBeto OâRourke
â[A] sweeping debut. . . . Paoletta smartly synthesizes the concerns of the writers, laborers, and others he interviews. . . . The evidence plainly backs his conclusion that the Southwest needs to increase resource conservation and other âcommunalâ practices.â âKirkus
âA thoughtful exploration of the realities and history of the Southwest in the U.S.â âLibrary Journal
âA phenomenal book. American Oasis is much more than a sweeping and brilliant account of the Southwest. Itâs essential reading about our past, present, andâif we have oneâfuture.ââAndy Borowitz, author of Profiles in Ignorance
âPaoletta, a discerning son of the Southwest, takes us back to the futureâthat is, to the hotter, drier, crispier future the whole nation can expect if current trends continue. This richly reported work of history and contemporary travelogue tells the epic, fantastical story of five sun-scorched metropolises that, having risen mirage-like from the desert, give us insights into how our urban civilization might surviveâeven thrive.â âHampton Sides, author of The Wide Wide Sea
âA deeply engaging workâsuperbly written and powerfully researchedâAmerican Oasis is destined to play an important role in debates about the future of arid climate survival and the built environment. Paoletta is going on the shelf next to Gretel Ehrlich, Gary Nabhan, Luis Urrea, and other inspiring thinkers who critically consider the West and the complexities of settlement.ââRaquel GutiĂ©rrez, author of Brown Neon
âIn this shimmering and revelatory book, Kyle Paoletta bridges the deep history and future of the Southwest, and somehow connects it all, movingly, to our larger American story. I couldnât put it down.â âRoss Andersen, The Atlantic
âThese are the hats of Kyle Paoletta: traveler, historian, naturalist, reporter, memoirist, diagnostician, advocate. All come together in this powerful treatment of the great Southwestern deserts, viewed through their cities and suburbs, a veritable flock of canaries in the coalmine that is climate change. American Oasis tells a complex human story of wisdom and stupidityâbut also of possibility and perhaps even hope.â âPhilip J. Deloria, Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History, Harvard University
âA chronicle as twisted and colorful as the region itself, replete with backroom dealers, fearless activists, shameless land-grabbers, and artistic visionaries who have shaped the Southwest. The result is a supremely entertaining, enlivening, and infuriating account of the beauty, injustice, warmth, and weirdness of one of the most misunderstood regions in the United States. Epic.â âAndrew Leland, author of The Country of the Blind
âPaoletta has written an eye-opening history of a region too many Americans find it convenient to pretend doesnât have one. In the process he shows why the Southwest, in all its contradiction and impossibility, might hold the key to our future. American Oasis is meticulously researched and reported by one of the best young journalists at work today, but what really makes it sing is the deeper knowledgeâand loveâof a native son.â âChristopher Beha, author of The Index of Self-Destructive Acts
âAmerican Oasis not only provides a detailed and engaging history, but also a vision of the future through the lessons of the American desert. Paoletta teaches us and, ultimately, compels us to act if we are going to have any future at all.â âJay Caspian Kang, author of The Loneliest Americans
âWhat a wonder this book is! Paolettaâs curiosity and learning run deep as the Vishnu schist, while his empathy and understanding extend out to the far horizon. Paolettaâs deep thinking about the American Westâacross red mesas, scant waters and improbable citiesâis as essential as it is companionable.ââ Rivka Galchen, author of Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch
âFor millennia, Indigenous people of the American Southwest have maintained cultural practices to ensure the protection and continuance of the people, the land, and all its resources. Prophecies associated with great changes in our way of life, to our environment, and to considerations about our shared future, as conveyed in our oral tradition, are presented in a thought-provoking way in American Oasis. The extent to which we can fulfill our responsibilities to the Earth Mother, and on behalf of those not yet born, will depend on how and if, the colonizing, dominant society can live more responsibly.â âBrian Vallo, Former Governor â Pueblo of Acoma