Review of Llano Estacada: An Island in the Sky edited by Stephen Bogener and William Tydeman

Authors

George Lubick, Northern Arizona University

Date of this Version

Winter 2012

Document Type

Article

Citation

Great Plains Quarterly 32:1 (Winter 2012).

Comments

Copyright © 2012 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska.

Abstract

"Island in the Sky" aptly describes the Llano Estacado, the southern extension of the Great Plains that rises some 800 feet above the surrounding terrain in northwestern Texas and northeastern New Mexico. It is this expansive landscape that William Tydeman and Stephen Bogener have placed in the forefront of an excellent collection of essays and photographs that explore the connections between the region's geography and culture. The plateau's flat terrain-"horizontal yellow," as historian Dan Flores has described it-invariably defines the Llano, but Stephen Bogener reminds us also that "85 percent of what the human eye registers on the Llano Estacado is sky." Its immensity dominates the landscape in many of the photographs included in the collection.