In 1930, anthropologists Robert Zingg and Wendell Bennett spent nine months among the Tarahumara of Chihuahua, Mexico, one of the least acculturated indigenous societies in North America. Their fieldwork resulted in The Tarahumara: An Indian Tribe of Northern Mexico (1935), a classic ethnography still familiar to anthropologists. In addition to this formal work, Zingg also penned a personal, unvarnished travelogue of his sojourn among the Tarahumara. Unpublished in his lifetime, Behind the Mexican Mountains is now available in print for the first time. This colorful account provides a compelling description of the landscape, people, traditions, language, and archaeology of the Tarahumara region. Abandoning the scientific detachment of the observer, Zingg frankly records his reactions to the people and their customs as he vividly evokes the daily experience of doing fieldwork. In the introduction, Howard Campbell examines Zingg's writing in light of current critiques of anthropology as literature. He makes a strong case that although earlier anthropological writing reveals unacceptable cultural biases, it also demonstrates the ongoing importance and vitality of field research.

In the great barranca known today as Copper Canyon, the small mining town of Batopilas once experienced a silver bonanza among the largest ever known. American investors, believing that Mexico offered an unexploited cornucopia, began purchasing mines in the Sierra Madre, seeking to expand their hold on natural resources outside U.S. borders. From 1861 until the Revolution of 1910, the men of the Batopilas Mining Company ruled the region using their wealth, armed might, and extensive connections. The technology, industrialism, and politics their interests brought to this remote community tied the Tarahumara, Yaqui, Mayo, and other peoples of the barrancas directly to the economies of the United States and China. Local society was revolutionized, and a dramatic tapestry of human interactions was created. Based on many volumes of mining company records, The Silver of the Sierra Madre exposes the mentality and methods of mine owners John Robinson and Alexander “Boss” Shepherd, vividly detailing their exploitation of the people and the natural resources of Chihuahua. Hart aptly demonstrates the human and financial losses resulting from President Porfirio Díaz’s development programs, which relied on foreign investors, foreign managers, and foreign technology. This unprecedented work also provides a highly interesting ethnographic and social description of one of the least-known areas of Mexico. It is a tale of power and desperation, respect and arrogance, adventure and tragedy, and, ultimately, triumph and survival.

This is the definitive bibliography of autobiographical writings on Mexico. The book incorporates works by Mexicans and foreigners, with authors ranging from disinherited peasants, women, servants and revolutionaries to more famous painters, writers, singers, journalists and politicians. Primary sources of historic and artistic value, the writings listed provide multiple perspectives on Mexico's past and give clues to a national Mexican identity. This work presents 1,850 entries, including autobiographies, memoirs, collections of letters, diaries, oral autobiographies, interviews, and autobiographical novels and essays. Over 1,500 entries list works from native-born Mexicans written between 1691 and 2003. Entries include basic bibliographical data, genre, author's life dates, narrative dates, available translations into English, and annotation. The bibliography is indexed by author, title and subject, and appendices provide a chronological listing of works and a list of selected outstanding autobiographies.

The murder of fourteen-year-old Willie Nickel caused an uproar in southern Wyoming and the public demanded finding the culprit and appropriate punishment. About seven months later Tom Horn, a cattle detective hired by the big ranchers, was arrested and charged with this crime. His lawyer, John W. Lacey and a solitary reporter from Denver, are convinced that Horn is innocent and they try their best to prove that the whole trial is actually a conspiracy by small ranchers, mostly rustlers, to silence Horn once for all. However, in spite of the fact that defense refuted most of the prosecution’s arguments and testimonies, the jury found him guilty and recommended the capital punishment by hanging. The story is based loosely on historical facts and legal documents and it is also supplemented by “Chatting with the Chief of Indian Scouts” to provide some insight in Horn’s background. The Shots at Iron Mountain illustrates the conflict between an individual and rapid societal changes which he cannot or perhaps does not want to accept. The story also highlights politicization and abuses within the judicial system which favor certain special interest groups - a phenomenon too frequent in modern history. Western author Jiri Cernik’s The Shots at Iron Mountain: A Story of Two Men - Tom Horn and Geronimo is an action-packed Western novel that brings voice to many of the West’s best-known characters, whose violent lives ended on the battlefield, in prison or at the end of a hangman’s noose. - Stuart Rosebrook, Ph.D., Senior Editor, True West magazine

The Pan-American "Huckleberry Finn" for the Twenty-first Century, a memoir of the young author's struggle with two realities, one Anglo-Saxon and the other Hispanic. In this picaresque "coming-of-age" memoir, we see a vision of North America's future in twenty-five years, when the Hispanic population becomes the majority and changes not only the demographics of the United States of America, but its culture. The author sweeps us along on a whirlwind of culture shock. He chronicles the adventures of a disgruntled industrial-age young man who feels a tribal and instinctual reluctance to accept the Third World's view of the United States, and America's foreign policy. But before he can assimilate the profound changes in language, culture, and reality, along comes a new relationship and an earthquake that stops a war only to kill twenty-two thousand people, and changes blind patriotism into something else.