Cities of Gold: A Journey Across the American Southwest

The author and two companions retraced Coronado's journey from the Mexican border through Arizona into New Mexico. I really enjoyed the history of the region presented by the author. The story of the author's actual journey was less compelling. The author had very little outdoor experience before undertaking the journey. So, a lot of his story involved tracking down horses that were not secured well and other "hardships" that the author experienced. Most experience outdoors-people would not have encountered these "hardships". I found this part of the book redundant and boring. However, I felt that the author gave a very thorough and informative view of the history of the area. I would recommend the book because of the historical aspect. The history was presented well and was entertaining and enlightening to read.

I had read this as an Ebook and bought the paperback for a friend.This is a great story. Douglas Preston as a novelist is completely different . This is his real-life adventure .Down to earth and candid about his feelings. You don't have to be a history buff to enjoy this book.

I became interested in this book after reading another book by Preston and my own experiences of traveling the same area in Arizona and New Mexico over the past 50 years. In addition I have about 1000 miles of riding experience in horseback packing in Southwest Colorado in the San Juan Mountains for four years in the mid 60's. The horse travel experience was truthful and accurate including the behavior of horses as well as how to use saddles, bridles, pack trees, and securing equipment on pack horses. The characters that he met along the way as well as his travel companions describe who lived in that area and who lives there now. If you plan on traveling in the Southwest, this book would be a good reference of places to visit, the history to become familiar with, and what to enjoy--maybe finding better water will make you trip more enjoyable!

Doug Preston is a fabulous writer, bringing forth a chronicle of wilderness travel and historical relevance that few have experienced since the end of the death of the western settlers, ranchers, and "The Wild West." An accurate account of Coronado's search for gold as well as domination of The New World in the name of Spain. A special read for historian and adventurer both.My second read of this book occurs as me and my wife settle in New Mexico, a dream we have had for decades. I now must restrain myself from jumping on a horse and following Doug and Walter's travels so I can experience their incredible journey first hand. With the wisdom they shared, I will resolve myself to visiting some of the highlights with my wife in our modern day camper.A sincere thanks to Doug and Walter, RIP Acomita.

I was fascinated by Preston's "Lost City of the Monkey God", and I decided to go ahead and buy this one.I was not disappointed. While it is sometimes a bit long, and nothing much happens along the hiking trails, other than thirst, some parts more focused on ancient Indian history are really extremely interesting.I have been traveling extensively to the same areas of New Mexico/Arizona in the early 1990s, I have seen the same Pueblo villages, and this book tells me what I never knew.

I am a big fan of the Southwest and love adventure stories, so this book really appealed to me. For the most part I really enjoyed this book - it was well written, exciting, interesting and always informative. I learned so much about Southwest history, especially the Native Americans and journey of Coronado. The book was excellently researched and presented. Sometimes it became a little more than I could take in as there were so many tribes and people involved in Coronado's travels. It was also interesting to read about the transformation of the cowboys and ranches through the years in Arizona. The concern I had with the book was how the horses fared on the trip. It seemed almost cruel putting them through such hardship and fear over horrible terrain. Difficult to read at times. The author also doesn't mince words on the treatment of Native Americans - the cruelty toward them was inconceivable. A fascinating but gritty book!

Douglas Preston is one of my favorite authors and I was intrigued by his decision . They would travel through truly dangerous territory . He was accompanied only by a friend . He would encounter some of the roughest and most demanding of circumstances. His plan was to as far as possible to follow Coronado's footsteps in what is now northern Mexico., Arizona and New Mexico, a journey of 1000 miles. This very long book , 885 pages, book tells the story of their adventure. Its a modern tale of the old southwest and very interesting.

Douglas Preston's tale of adventure in the Southwestern wilderness is a GEM. It is packed with history of the area, the invasion of Coronado and Europeans of the American Southwest and the subsequent changes in cowboy and indigenous culture. The saga of his present horse back journey is amusing and entertaining and filled with interesting characters. I am a big fan of all of the Preston & Childs mysteries and have found Douglas Preston's solo books enthralling too. He is especially good at developing and fleshing out his characters and one can see this in "Cities of Gold", although it is a non-fiction historcal adventure book. The book is actually a tragic tale of cultural and environmental destruction and the most poignant episode in the book is the portion when Preston and his friend emerge on the outskirts of Albuquerque, NM after being in a beautiful, pristine wilderness for months. The description of his altered response to the American city in all its squalor, tackiness, pollution and danger, after living in nature is a scathing commentary on American culture and the hostility of the modern city. Crossing Albuquerque was the most danggerous part of their horse back trip.I highly recommend it and the book has been added to my home library.....it is a "Keeper"...to be re-read now and then!

I first read this after visiting New Mexico. It is a truly awesome place - in many ways the least American part of America I have seen. I wanted to know more about the area and this book was a great find. It gives an account of a horseback ride through the remotest parts of Arizona and into New Mexico following the route taken by the first Spanish explorers several hundreds of years ago. The author has excellent descriptive powers and I thoroughly enjoyed the intertwining of the history of the region with the narrative of the journey.

Well written non-fiction book by the Pendergast series.

A highly enjoyable tale of a journey across some of the harshest country in the southern U.S.. I highly recommend it.

This is not a book for non-Americans, except one has a special interest in the American Southwest. Because I visited some of these places and did myself a small scale horse trekking across the wilderness of the Wild West, I could not escape in buying the book. And I have sympathies for the ideas of the author.What do you get? An adventurous journey sometimes close to Don Quixote, besides that strenuous, troublesome, disappointing to some respects but all the time exceedingly rewarding in many other respects. For the author, for the reader perhaps not so much. I found it not too illuminating to hear the 21st time how difficult it was with the horses. The book has its lengths!The author and his companion deserve attention not alone for what they have achieved. More for the idea and the irresistible determination to make ends meet. The author planned to trace back the travels of the 16th century Spanish explorer Coronado. This meant a journey through a thousand miles across Arizona and New Mexico where they are most inaccessible, no roads, but fences, no water, but dust and heat, brutal deserts and mountain country, no more hostile Indians but thorny shrubs and sensible horses, no sleepless nights in the open due to the fatigue of a hard day.A risky enterprise! Throughout the book the author flashes back to the expedition of Coronado who was searching for the seven cities of Gold, an exaggeration of an earlier report which transformed an assembly of the pueblos of the Zuni Indians, this highly civilized and refined culture, into a myth.The greedy Spaniards did not appreciate the true cultural riches of the pueblo Indians, they were blind for the spiritual wealth which they thought to possess themselves in abundance in their Catholic faith. But their hearts were of a lesser quality than those of the Indians who offered them hospitality but earned the bloodthirsty disappointment of the Spaniards. The West was not civilized, this is also what the author has to learn. The West was just changed!The author underwent a development in his thinking. He recognized that the anglo-american culture was established at the cost of the Indian culture. I cannot share his opinion that destruction of the Indian culture was inevitable. He says: "Our wealth derives from our land and our natural resources, both of which we took from the native inhabitants of this continent. We would have nothing had we not destroyed what came before".Some sort of a cheap excuse? I am no American, I see it more critical. But he is not so sure if the fabulous America of the late 20th century was truly a better world than the world of the Indians before the advent of the whites. But I suppose this is what the Americans wanted to have.Their trip had taken place within the borders of the USA, but they had also seen the ghosts of an alien world that preceded this one. They had seen "worlds glimpsed behind rubbled walls, worlds chiselled in petroglyphs and lying scattered among broken postherds, worlds blowing across vast deserts; worlds buried in memories of cattle, dust, and grass; worlds laughing in dry saltbushes, muttering and whispering to us from a thousand dry arroyos, worlds flying up into the night sky at that moment between sleeping and waking".They had not found a triumphant America in the dusts of the deserts. Rather layers of loss. The best thing about the West was that it was made possession. Too many destroyed pueblos and vanished Indian tribes, including the peoples of the biggest pueblo (Pecos) to hail about the process! The Indians, the cowboys, the wilderness, the great cattle drives, the unfenced ranges, the homestead families, all these things had been lost, not won."We had witnessed the last dying glimmer of that peculiar, eccentric, ugly, violent, free, and peaceful place known as the American West. As the Old West had died a new one was born."The trails had to be replaced by wagon roads and these had to be buried under railroads or interstates, the range had to be fenced, the prairies had to be busted and planted and the rivers diverted. But the conclusion is: "There is no death, only a change of worlds."

For fans of D.P who like more than. the misteries and Pendergast The country is vividvy described. perhaps exagerated. But I have not finished the book yet.