Horizontal Yellow: Nature and History in the Near Southwest

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Flores, Dan. Horizontal Yellow: Nature and History in the Near Southwest. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1999. Flores presents illustrative ruminations on the origins and metamorphoses of the American wilderness ideal and desert appreciation; he reflects on the mystery of the Red River’s origins and Texans’ penchant for grazing over, plowing under and otherwise privatizing their state’s land. He writes about how horses evolved in the Americas and then died out, only to be reintroduced by Europeans after Columbus. He traces the explosive spread, commodification, and virtual disappearance of wild horses, and, in a separate essay, that of the wolves. Throughout Horizontal Yellow, Flores offers his own self-aware analysis to explain nature’s current condition, including his ancestors’ roles in constructing it, while also suggesting a better, more salubrious way of living in the world by embracing teachings beyond academic history’s institutional bounds and a faith grounded in the land and humanity’s physical and emotional need for nature. (Text adapted from an H-Net review by Fred McVaugh.)