No New Mexican should be without this useful volume, the first history of New Mexico in many years to be published with the official sanction of the state. The general reader, the newcomer to New Mexico, and the student will find remarkably detailed information here on every aspect of New Mexico's past.

The authors begin their survey with New Mexico's earliest inhabitants, prehistoric Sandia and Folsom men, and carry it up to such contemporary developments as the construction of Cochiti Dam. Their narrative covers such major subjects as exploration and settlement, westward expansion, political and military affairs, commerce and trade, ranching and agriculture, lumbering and mining, science, religion, culture, and education.