{"product_id":"sonora-its-geographical-personality-9780292765382","title":"Sonora: Its Geographical Personality","description":"\u003cp\u003eA land where some streams ran with gold. A landscape nearly empty of inhabitants in the wake of Apache raids from the north. And a former desert transformed by irrigation into vast fields of wheat and cotton. This was and is the state of Sonora in northwest Mexico. In this cultural historical geography  Robert C. West explores the dual geographic \"personality\" of this part of Mexicos northern frontier. Utilizing the idea of \"old\" and \"new\" landscapes  he describes two Sonorasto the east  a semiarid to subhumid mountainous region that reached its peak of development in the colonial era and still lives largely in its colonial past; and  to the west  a desert region that in the twentieth century has become a major agricultural producer and the modern center of economic and cultural activity. After a description of the physical and biotic aspects of Sonora  West describes the aboriginal farming cultures that inhabited eastern Sonora before the Spanish conquest. Following the conquest  he traces the spread of Jesuit missions and Spanish mining and ranching communities into this land where gold  silver  and copper ores were easily extracted by surface mining. He charts the decline of eastern Sonora with the coming of Apache and Seri raids during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. And he shows how western Sonora has become one of Mexicos most powerful political and economic entities in the twentieth century. For geographers  historians  anthropologists  and economists  as well as travelers to Sonora and its coastal resorts  this lively and interesting book will be important reading.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67932207284277,"sku":"ByrdShop_029276538X","price":100.84,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780292765382.jpg?v=1794221220","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/sonora-its-geographical-personality-9780292765382","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}