House of Rain

Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest

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By Craig Childs

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$21.99

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$28.99 CAD

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This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around July 3, 2008. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

A "beautifully written travelogue" that draws on the latest scholarly research as well as a lifetime of exploration to light on the extraordinary Anasazi culture of the American Southwest (Entertainment Weekly). 

The greatest "unsolved mystery" of the American Southwest is the fate of the Anasazi, the native peoples who in the eleventh century converged on Chaco Canyon (in today's southwestern New Mexico) and built what has been called the Las Vegas of its day, a flourishing cultural center that attracted pilgrims from far and wide, a vital crossroads of the prehistoric world. The Anasazis' accomplishments — in agriculture, in art, in commerce, in architecture, and in engineering — were astounding, rivaling those of the Mayans in distant Central America.

By the thirteenth century, however, the Anasazi were gone from Chaco. Vanished. What was it that brought about the rapid collapse of their civilization? Was it drought? pestilence? war? forced migration? mass murder or suicide? For many years conflicting theories have abounded. Craig Childs draws on the latest scholarly research, as well as on a lifetime of adventure and exploration in the most forbidding landscapes of the American Southwest, to shed new light on this compelling mystery.

Genre:

On Sale
Jul 3, 2008
Page Count
512 pages
Publisher
Back Bay Books
ISBN-13
9780316067546

Craig Childs

About the Author

Craig Childs — naturalist, adventurer, desert ecologist, and frequent contributor to National Public Radio’s Morning Edition — lives in Crawford, Colorado. His previous books include House of Rain, The Way Out, The Secret Knowledge of Water, and Soul of Nowhere.

Learn more about this author