SOURCE: Palmer, Jean B. Review of New Mexico, Rio Grande, and Other Essays, by Tony Hillerman. History and Geography 23, no. 6 (November 1993): 38.

In the following review, Palmer praises New Mexico, Rio Grande, and Other Essays, asserting that the collection is well-written and informative.

If all state histories were as clearly, elegantly, and beautifully rendered as Hillerman's essay on New Mexico [in New Mexico, Rio Grande and Other Essays], how easy local history would be to acquire. The variety in the color photos by David Muench and Robert Reynolds adds further beauty to the text. Hillerman's essay describes in his relaxed, accessible style New Mexico's unique geography (“no other state offers such an abrupt contrast in landscape”), and its lengthy human history from the 25,000-year-old Sandia Man (the “First American”) through the Golden Age of the Pueblos and the invasion of the Spanish and the Anglo-Americans. Much of what Hillerman...