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Idaho
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As the Chair of the ILA Book Award Committee for the past year, I was blessed with many opportunities which might not have come my way had I missed out on reading the nominees for 2002’s award. There were a number of very fine books on our list, and even those not making the list of finalists provided interesting views of Idaho and its literature. Secrets
of the Magic Valley and Hagerman’s Remarkable Horse, edited by Todd Shallat, was one of the last on my
list of sixteen titles to be read and evaluated. The Copyright Page includes this inscription: “Collectively
written, the project evolved from seven research essays anthologized as A
Natural History of the Hagerman National Monument
(2002), edited by Kathryn Baxter and available from Black Canyon
Communications.” Although I
am eclectic in my reading, the idea of seven research essays on the
subject of the Hagerman Valley seemed just a bit daunting!
Then I flipped through the pages and was caught by the outstanding
graphics and layout. Not to
be swayed by pretty, I went to the librarian’s first test for
nonfiction: does it have a good table of contents, index, and
bibliography? Yes, indeed,
the index and contents-table were there, and the bibliographic information
imbedded in the Sources/Credits pages would keep an enthused researcher
busy for quite some time. I
began to read. The Magic
Valley is just a little over 10,000 square miles in area, “stretching
from Burley to Bliss, from the Sawtooths to Jackpot, the valley takes its
name from a staircase of water projects that reclaimed as if by magic the
fertile crescent of the Snake River Plain.”
As water is the basis for the Magic Valley’s name, it is water
and its uses that have framed the history of the place and its people.
Shallat’s book takes us on a journey through that history,
sparking our imaginations with views of the natural world that is, and the
natural world that was. The
text flows smoothly, drawing the reader along in the drama of the valley
and the people who have lived there.
Every photograph or drawing is accompanied by absorbing
information; each chapter deftly weaves the past with the present, a
fabric of bright skeins of geology, anthropology, and sociology.
I was looking for the book that added greatly to the body of
literature of Idaho, and The Secrets of the Magic
Valley and Hagerman’s Remarkable Horse made me think, “Yes, this is
Idaho.” Todd
Shallat is director of Boise State University’s Public History Program,
and was 2002 Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Idaho
Professor of the Year. He
received his Ph.D. at Carnegie-Mellon University in 1985.
His publications include: Structures
in the Stream: Water, Science, and the Rise of the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers (1994); Snake: The
Plain and Its People (1994); Harrison
Boulevard: Preserving the Past in
Boise’s North End (1987), Prospects:
Land Use in the Birds of Prey
Natural Area 1860-1987 (1987); Water
and the Rise of Public Ownership
on the Fresno Plain 1850-1978 (1978), and more than two dozen articles
and reports on science and technology subjects. Snake:
The Plain and Its People
received an honorable mention for the ILA Book Award for 1994.
Shallat is also the winner of the Abel Wolman Book Award, the Henry
Adams Book Prize, and the U.S. Department of the Interior Outstanding
Service Award. I believe this
book is well suited to both academic and public libraries, and will enjoy
a broad readership.
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