From the Southwest

'This book has it all. I loved it. Everything we thought about the Wild West is laid before us through the keen lens of Bill Stanford’s eyes. It’s bursting with energy and curiosity for the history, natural sciences, the animals and above all, the people who made those vast open spaces of the American dream. They are all there: cowboys and Indians, lawmen and outlaws, cavalry, ranchers and rustlers. The unique natural features and enormous skies, of kivas, space travel and Native American culture.Famous names come to life: Billy the Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, Geronimo, Colonel Custer, The Alamo. It is not only the pioneering history of the southwest states of America. There’s oil and vast freight trains that lighten the road loads, Buddy Holly and Victor Sassoon, Jeff Bezos and D. H. Lawrence, father and son Medal of Honour recipients the MacArthurs and the Buffalo Soldiers. Somehow the geology of Shanghai and the economics of denim jeans have their place. Only Bill and Janice could find an exceptional museum dedicated to windmills, the century old San Antonio Paris Hatters, a key museum or explain the order and minutiae of a vast cattle drive. And if you’ve ever wondered how much a prostitute earned? Yes, that’s there too!The Southwest is as big as the map shows and this book brings it all to life like no other.'- Myra Fonceca, Dragon Cottage, Devon, England.