I have now read 4 of Dan Flores books on the environmental and cultural history of the West and I highly recommend his latest scribe: COYOTE AMERICA...............Dan is a gifted story-teller, a eco historian at the top of his game ..............Whether you are interested in Coyotes or not, COYOTE AMERICA tells so much about how us human animals and the coyote are in so many ways mirror images of each other, adapting to all that the cosmos throws at us both..............The Amazon.Com synopsis of COYOTE AMERICA captures the heart and sole of the book perfectly-------"Coyote America is both an environmental and a deep natural history of the coyote".............. "It traces both the five-million-year-long biological story of an animal that has become the "wolf" in our backyards, as well as its cultural evolution from a preeminent spot in Native American religions to the hapless foil of the Road Runner"........... "A deeply American tale, the story of the coyote in the American West and beyond is a sort of Manifest Destiny in reverse, with a pioneering hero whose career holds up an uncanny mirror to the successes and failures of American expansionism"................ "An illuminating biography of this extraordinary animal, Coyote America isn't just the story of an animal's survival—it is one of the great epics of our time"

READ REVIE OF COYOTE AMERICA BY CLICKING LINK
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiN--qbsNbNAhVD5YMKHeFNDkgQqQIILDAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fthe-original-bolshevik-1467377890&usg=AFQjCNEEx91QY7tTiRm4ow2wHasKS-uNnw
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Original Bolshevik

Mark Twain called the ‘spiritless, cowardly’ coyote ‘a living,

READ REVIEW OF COYOTE AMERICA BY CLICKING LINK

  https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3113182078732942696#editor/target=post;postID=6171966198741673390;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=2;src=postnamebreathing allegory 

COYOTE AMERICA

By Dan Flores
Basic, 271 pages, $27.99
----------------------------------------------------------

Dan Flores

Coyote America: A Natural & Supernatural History

Dan Flores. Basic, $27.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-465-05299-8

Flores (American Serengeti), emeritus professor of Western history at the University of Montana, looks at the coyote and its history on the North American continent in this educational volume. Having lived for a decade in the piñon-juniper mesas south of Santa Fe, N.Mex., "the evolutionary heartland of America's native canines," Flores considers the coyote's howl "the original national anthem of North America"—one that dates back "nearly 1 million years." He traces the animal's roots, giving lessons on both physiology and mythology. "As a literary character," Flores notes, the coyote is a "complex figure full of nuances of all sorts" as well as a "trickster who is forever falling for the oldest trick in the book." Flores also presents accounts of coyotes in urban environments and their depictions in pop culture. For example, in Chicago during the 2007 heat wave, a coyote walked into a sandwich shop and jumped onto a freezer to cool down, to the surprise and amusement of employees and customers. Similarly, considerations of fictional characters such as Wile E. Coyote, introduced by Warner Bros. in 1949, provide entertaining counterpoints to the coyote's status as "North America's oldest surviving deity." Flores's mix of edification and entertainment is a welcome antidote to a creature so often viewed with fear. Illus. Agent: Melissa Chinchillo, Fletcher & Co. (June)
-----------------------------------------------------

Dan Flores

 Follow

I’m a writer and former professor, born and raised in Louisiana but a resident of the American West – West Texas, Montana, now the Santa Fe area of Northern New Mexico – for more than 35 years. I spent most of my university career at the University of Montana in Missoula, where I was A. B. Hammond Professor of the History of the American West. A writing career that has so far produced ten books started with a major book on western exploration, followed by one on Indian traders in the Southwest. I went on to write several creative nonfiction and historical books about places in the American West, from the Llano Estacado and the Near Southwest to the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains. Along the way I also wrote a book on the artists and photographers of the Northern Rocky Mountains, and teamed up with artist Amy Winton for a book of my photographs and her pastels of the canyons of West Texas. More recently, with American Serengeti and Coyote America – both scheduled for publication in 2016 – my focus has been nature writing and the “biographies” of animals like bison, wolves, wild horses, and especially the epic story of North America’s fascinating and now most widespread small wolf, the coyote. My articles and essays on the environment, art, and culture of the West have appeared in magazines such as Texas Monthly, Orion, Wild West, Southwest Art, High Country News, and The Big Sky Journal, for which I wrote a column, “Images of the American West,” for eight years. My books and articles have been honored by the Western History Association, the Western Writers of America, the High Plains Book Awards, the Montana Book Awards, the Oklahoma Book Awards, the Denver Public Library, the National Cowboy Museum, the Montana Historical Society, the Texas State Historical Association, and the University of Oklahoma Press.
-------------------------------------
The other 3 Flores books that blogger
Rick has read and recommend are:

---