Pete Warzel Reviews Álvaro Enrigue's "You Dreamed of Empires"

Review by Pete Warzel

Last year in August this blog published a review of a history of the conquest of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, Conquistadors and Aztecs, by Stefan Rinke. That was then, this is now. Welcome to the Electric Kool-Aid conquest of the Mexica/Nahua…an extraordinary reimagining of the machinations of colonialism. Tenochtitlan here is Tenoxtitlan and 1519 is cast in a modern literary trip, non-stop, cranked up a notch or two by the ingestion of magic mushrooms. Álvaro Enrigue manages a fantastical Cortés v. Moctezuma endgame, and it works as a novel for our times.

Mr. Enrigue is an award-winning Mexican author who has taught at Columbia and Princeton, working on his PhD in Latin American literature to while away the time. He has the literary chops for this epic story that sets in motion the history of the Western hemisphere, including the devolution to our convoluted corner of the Southwest. We all know the story of the Conquest of Mexico, but not from this angle. It is stunning.

You Dreamed of Empires

Written by Álvaro Enrigue
Translated by Natasha Wimmer
Riverhead Books
Hardcover
240 Pages
$28.00.

He begins the novel with a note, instructions to his English translator, that explains his use of Nahua words and names, with pronunciations. Then he backs off, apologizes with the truest rationalization of a writer and his work. “…But I’m a writer and words matter to me. They may signify and signal, but I believe they also invoke.” 

Enrigue’s prose hints at Garcia Marquez – fluid, poetic always, but not timid. There are echoes of Borges. Dialogue is embedded in the narrative without quotation marks, much like Cormac McCarthy’s writing, but it is not difficult to follow. All flows smoothly in the story. He takes on the gore of Aztec social justice and the bone-crunching violence of battle with a wicked sense of humor. It is a chilling scene when we encounter Moctezuma with his sister/wife Atoxtli that runs counter to our historical conception of his indecisiveness regarding the Spanish invaders. “There’ll be no scandal in this house, and if I have to erase you, I will.” That is the cold voice of an emperor and a very icy brother. “These are days of blood and shit.” That is the voice of a pragmatic leader. 

All of the characters are historical, save one fictional invention. Enrigue himself appears in real time in a scene where the tripping Moctezuma sees him and certainly does not understand. The story proper is divided into four sections, and all action takes place in the course of one day – when the Spaniards enter Tenoxtitlan for the first time. It begins with “Before the Nap,” in the heart of the city at Moctezuma’s invitation. Most of the action is internal to the characters as they feast with the emperor’s sister/wife in the old palace. There is a wonderful episode where the captains of the Spanish search for their stable boy and the 27 horses in his charge. They begin to walk the palace rooms and hallways, lost in a maze, a labyrinth, and the narration is the stuff of nightmares. “Also, they had the sense that the corridors and cells they’d been wandering through were getting narrower and narrower.” They call and hear response from the rest of the Spanish soldiers in the palace. “They were on the other side of the long wall, but Caldera and his men couldn’t figure out how to get to them despite walking the length of it several times.” I have had a variation of that dream many times.

Section two is “Moctezuma’s Nap” – the center of the book. “The silence his nap demanded was imperial.” The story’s motion is on hiatus. Section three, “After the Nap” starts the forward march of history with long narration and quick cut scenes of the stress-induced palace intrigue within Moctezuma’s court. Parallel action by Cortés, Moctezuma, his sister, and the fictional character, Jazmín Caldera, moves rapidly, all leading to the same place at the same time – the end of the day for the temple sacrifices. The emperor is tripping on more and more mushrooms and Enrigue inserts modern drug slang into the story. “…Give me a slide, a whole one.” Time becomes surreal as Moctezuma and his high priest at the temple of  Huitzilopochtli hear music, and begin to dance to the music of Marc Bolan’s 1970’s rock band, T. Rex. The song is “Monolith” and you really must give it a listen to put the whole novel in context. Linked here.

Section Four, “Cortés’s Dream,” is a powerhouse of imagery at the meeting of Cortés and Moctezuma, with all the novel’s players present. Cortés delivers a history of Christianity and the emperor bids the conquistador to “dream now.” The day ends, the action of the novel is over. But the dream…it is the dream of the entire history of Mexico from that day forward, condensed elegantly into three pages. “…But the new kingdom that he had called  New Spain grew so much that it stretched all the way to another enormous kingdom to the north, to be called New Mexico.” Magnificent.

With all the press on this novel, I expected a doorstop of a book. It is about the size of a paperback physically and runs to just 227 written pages. A surprisingly modest package, but also an epic undertaking. To put it all succinctly, “No one had any idea what was going on.” We can recount history, but most assuredly we still do not know what is really going on in our world.

Álvaro Enrigue’s novel is a marvel.

Book Review of Stefan Rinke's "Conquistadors and Aztecs: A History of the Fall of Tenochtitlan"

Conquistadors and Aztecs: A History of the Fall of Tenochtitlan
By Stefan Rinke
Translated by Christopher Reid
Oxford University Press
Hardcover, 328 pages
$34.95

Book Review by Pete Warzel

The fall of the Mexica (Aztec) capital city, Tenochtitlan, and subsequent colonization of what we now call Mexico, is rife with misconceptions, and holds our interest as the start of the movement north into our New Mexico. There are many parallels of struggle, colonization, and after-effects for indigenous populations between the Valley of Mexico invasion and the entrada into the kingdom of New Mexico. Dr. Rinke, professor of the Department of History at the Institute of Latin American Studies at Freie University, Berlin, has written a detailed but engaging history that clarifies Spanish disruption and settlement of the Americas. The book has been translated from the German original.

“By the time Christopher Columbus dies in Valladolid, Spain, on May 20, 1506, the euphoria about his westward voyage and the newly discovered territories in the Indies had turned to disillusionment.” That fitting start to this book encapsulates succinctly the discovery and fitful exploration from 1492. Enter Cortes: Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano.

Dr. Rinke gives a good history of the Spanish Caribbean and existing colonial cities before the further exploration of the Mexican mainland, as well as a brief history of Cortés’ familial background and first successes in the region.  The Mainland action begins in November 1518, when an expedition was put together in Santiago, Cuba where Cortés was the mayor for the Yucatan and then further inland. What is clear in the preparations for conquest is the politics of the Spanish court, colonies, and expansion in the new world. Everything is political intrigue. It is a distant echo of our own times of incivility and urge to political/economic gain, but perhaps on a grander scale. This is an international stage; Europe and the new unknown. Cortés has enemies in the new world, specifically in the Governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez, and his minions. Money, position, and pay-off are the keys to the kingdom, and all the players are adept at working the system to their advantage. The Velázquez/Cortés rivalry goes on for years.

The expedition is a “hueste” defined by the Crown taking a share of the profits, and there is no doubt that the army that accompanied Cortés as he set sail, was a corps of three hundred soldiers of fortune. Rinke iterates that gold is the mantra here. The irony is that they, the mercenaries, certainly including Cortés, are deeply religious and baptism competes as the driving force for conquest with greed. This will remain the pattern throughout the conquest of Mexico and New Mexico – economic gain for the Crown and self, and “…the use of the cross as a war symbol…was very important.” “…They were able to cultivate an image of themselves as missionaries of the sword, even though, in reality, this was only a cover for their true motivation.”

The outline of the conquest is known to us all. The detail of how it worked is the core of this book. Rinke’s research is rigorous. We think of the original three hundred Spaniards and the impossibility of conquering the great Mexica city-state and alliances with such a small army, grown to six hundred fifty soldiers at the final fall of Tenochtitlan. But the scale of the indigenous allies is staggering: twenty thousand at the final push for conquest. These allies were as politically adept as the Spanish, with ongoing maneuvering between the Aztec overlords and the Spanish, waiting, in effect, to see where the cards would fall, on an ongoing basis. The Tlaxcalans, who we know as a part of the history of Santa Fe, were the mainstay of the Spanish ancillary forces, fierce and with a literal axe to grind against the Mexicas.

The conflict and conquest took four battles after the Spanish fled their initial peaceful entry into the city. This war was a constant cycle of defeat, retreat, regrouping, defeat and retreat, all bloody and brutal. The Tlaxcalans were intent on genocide of the Mexica in their capital city. The Spanish army grew with reinforcements and soldiers changing sides when Cortés defeated an opposing expedition sent by Velázquez to remove Cortés from his potentially lucrative position in Mexico.

The key underlying elements of Aztec defeat included a real hesitancy by Moctezuma to forcefully engage the invaders. Negotiations and gifts were the initial defense, perhaps partly due to Mexica myths of the return of their own god, Quetzalcoatl in the guise of the Spanish invaders. Further, the tenuous political alliances and tribute power held by Tenochtitlan fueled these rival states for revenge and alliance with the Spanish in numbers that strengthened the invading force to one of sufficient size to lay siege to the city and prevail. The tradition of “flower wars,” where rival city-states engaged in battle to take prisoners for ritual sacrifice and not specifically to kill the enemy on the battlefield, was a cultural handicap in a position of all-out war by the Spanish, and the violent revenge motivation of the Tlazcalans. Finally, the Mexica did fight to win, but the siege, including a ring of ships built by the Spanish specifically to blockade the city on Lake Texcoco, was the key to victory, as related by one Spanish chronicle of the invasions: “More people die of hunger than from the iron.”

The result of the conquest from 1518 to 1521 was an established Spanish capital city on mainland Mexico, a base for further exploration of what we know as New Mexico beginning in 1540, and first colonization in 1598. “The conquest of Tenochtitlan was thus the culmination of a Mesoamerican war, which must be understood as part of the long history of military conflicts between the Mexica and their countless enemies.” Cortés did not conquer the Aztecs with a handful of Spanish mercenaries but with superior weapons and the allied city-states that knew how to play Cortés and Moctezuma against each other for their own political and economic gain. Mesoamerica and the Valley of Mexico were structurally unstable to begin with. The Spanish invaders provided a hesitancy in proactive defense by the Aztecs through their myths of gods returning, as well as the opportunity for Tlaxcalans, and Totanocs to ally with the superior and maybe mystical firepower, to affect revenge, brutal revenge, on their Mexica overlords. But it was the sheer number of allies that was the key. Three hundred Spanish conquistadors, even with magical guns and horses, could not have accomplished the conquest.

Dr. Rinke creates a well-defined history of the seemingly “miraculous” victory of the Spaniards against the powerful Mexica city-state. It is a history we know but know much better now due to this fine work of historical research and writing.

Ned Blackhawk's The Rediscovery of America: A Book Review by Pete Warzel

The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History
By Ned Blackhawk
Yale University Press
Hardcover
616 pages
$35.00

Review by Pete Warzel

Ned Blackhawk, School for Advanced Research board director, Howard R. Lamar Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University, and the recipient of many professional awards for his research and writing, has given us a major work that explores the influence of Indigenous nations in and on the making of the United States. The research is extensive, the book eye-opening. The layers of influence and interaction are not what we learned in school, and fill in the blanks that make a more coherent whole of this nation’s history. Our pristine creation myth is perhaps not the real story.

Professor Blackhawk places a map on the inside cover and frontispiece for your first encounter with the extent of what he is about to present. It is a map of the present day United States, with the names of Native Nations located geographically, designating their pre-removal locations. The map is crowded, covered in Indigenous designations that succinctly makes the point of how extensive the original habitation of our country covered the entire landscape– and these are “select” Native Nations, not the entirety. The back inside cover and end page are a mirror image of this map, but detail the contemporary locations of state and federally recognized Native Nations. I am astounded at how many of the names are unfamiliar to me. That hole in our history is eloquently filled by Blackhawk in this serious work.

The two geographic areas where I have spent most of my life begin this history chronologically– New Mexico and the Southwest, and the northeast of Colonial France and England. I grew up in upstate New York, where the Iroquois Confederacy was familiar, the tribes legendary – Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, Oneida, and Seneca. Their names mark the geography of the Finger Lakes, New York State counties, and towns – West Seneca. NY, was a hang-out for me, Cayuga Lake a destination. New Mexico and its nineteen pueblos are home to me now, their designation on the map warranting an expanded window to show the geographic locations spilling into Arizona.

Blackhawk’s work is so extensive it is difficult to compress in this short space. Again, reflecting the crowded visual of the map, we learn that in 1492 the Americas were home to 75 million native peoples. The history lost or overlooked is immense.

You will know the Spanish history that begins the book proper. The enslavement of indigenous people by Europeans as well as by other indigenous tribes is becoming more known in our exploration of the past in New Mexico. The same is true in the traditional narrative of the founding of our country, the colonial Northeast. Details that we might be unaware of are brought to light by Blackhawk’s research, such as the very poor military performance by George Washington, as a British commander during the French and Indian War (Seven Years War), pre-American revolution. There is the symbiotic relationship of the native nations with the French in Canada and into the northern Midwest that was built on trade and protection, throwing balance into chaos when the British defeated the French in the French and Indian War. The French left their names behind in the geography and cities (Detroit, Belle Fourche, Des Moines, LaCrosse, etc.), but also left, upon their withdrawal, a new power structure that Blackhawk argues was the spark of the revolution that created the United States.

It is just that notion of creation that is the heart of the argument of this book. Colonial expansion from the original British colonies, and the power displacements leading to Indigenous migrations, followed by colonist land expansion into the Ohio River Basin and further west, created a vacuum that the British government could not fill. Militias formed by the colonists took land from the displaced tribes and nations, and sparked a trend of intentional violence against native people, but also against British troops. The first shots of what would be the American revolution may have been fired in March, 1765, in Pennsylvania. The frontier settlers began raids on British supply trains that carried trade goods to the tribes, and “…laid siege to English forts in the region.” Blackhawk terms this rebellious, political movement “settler sovereignty”, that later in the year embraced urban protests against taxes and our school-taught history of the Boston Tea Party.

There are parallels to our troubled times today. Following the French and Indian War, really a global colonial power struggle, British colonists expanded west, and Pontiac’s War (an Odawa leader) began almost immediately. A vigilante group was formed in 1763, self-titled the Paxton Boys, renamed later the Black Boys. “An interior political culture was forming that disdained Indians and the eastern officials who supported them.” This sounds all too familiar, and although the name may be coincidence, it is eerily parallel to the contemporary neo-fascist group the Proud Boys, and the rise of fringe militias in our country. The mid-eighteenth century version was also racially biased. Benjamin Franklin, then a loyal British subject and member of the Pennsylvania colonial legislature, wrote a treatise in 1764, “ A Narrative of the Late Massacres in Lancaster County of a Number of Indians, FRIENDS of this Province” that declaimed “the only Crime seems to have been, that they had a reddish brown Skin, and Black hair.” He goes on to state that this kind of racial, violent behavior, “…is done by no civilized Nation.” Franklin was not re-elected to the legislature for his outspokenness, as the “interior” of the colonies became a new political force, and that too sounds distinctly familiar in our current politics.

The distrust of the settlers in the interior of Indigenous people now carried over to the British government, which supposedly protected westward expansion. Blackhawk cites a stunning paragraph in Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, the founding document of the American Revolution that certainly has linguistic ties to our contentious monument that sits, or does not, at the center of the Santa Fe Plaza. The third to last grievance in the declaration against George III, King of England, states “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

It surprises me that a discussion about this founding rhetoric never surfaced during the “battle” over the soldiers monument in Santa Fe, given the original “Savage Indians” statement carved in the monument, and then chiseled out in the night. We are indeed ignorant of our own history, or perhaps, selectively so, and begs the question what do we do with our memorialized founding document – change it, chisel the words from the paper? Ignore it?

Professor Blackhawk’s impeccable history urges us to ask these hard questions.

Governing by the initial Articles of Confederation, the new U.S structure and infrastructure was lacking, and became a driving force of the creation of the United States Constitution in 1787, more specifically addressing the relationship with, and management of, Native Nations. But the young, independent U.S. still faced uncertainties in its administration and application of its new laws. Looking to acquiring territory from foreign holdings in North America, the new U.S. administration needed to find a legal way to do so. “Could the federal government ‘purchase’ lands, and if so, how were these lands to be added to the Union? And what was to be done with the Native and non-U.S. peoples upon them?” Acquisition by war and conquest were recognized by the Constitution. But how was the new country to govern other circumstances? Treaties with the Native Nations became the country’s internal growth mechanism, accompanied certainly by the now repeated violence of settlers against Indians. Blackhawk argues that the treaty process in place set the path for relations with other countries and empires, and the further acquisition of territories to add to the growing boundaries of the new country. The U.S cut its diplomacy teeth on Indigenous Nations.

In 1860 the pattern of expansion and violence repeats as the nation drives towards Civil War. Union soldiers stationed in the west for Indian matters are recalled for the war, and volunteer militias take on the process, again, of “settler colonialism.” As Professor Blackhawk points out, through the words of General John Pope in orders to Colonel Henry Sibley, ‘it is my purpose utterly to exterminate the Sioux if I have the power to do so….” We cannot hide that direct statement behind the blur of time and history. This federal position is a stark, reprehensible admission. It is our country’s history, plain and chilling.

In a recoil from federal mismanagement of relationships, many tribes also seceded from the Union, forming treaties with the Confederate States. In 1864 a Cherokee secessionist, Stand Watie, became a brigadier general, and “…was the last Confederate general to surrender.” Other tribes and leaders sought to maintain the treaties made with the United States–the Union –abiding by a commitment to the law. As Blackhawk relates about Indian Territory, “…the war was becoming a civil war within the civil war.”

The period following the Civil War, into the twentieth century, and now into the twenty-first, is an alternative repeat of policies and friction. “Termination” in the 1950s and 60s was an attempt by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to terminate treaties, and so tribal lands, hinting at or promising individual compensation, and more direct control by the nations. Given the murky status of sovereignty and U.S. citizen status of tribal members, termination promised it all, including relocation programs for Indian families to urban areas This effort resulted in a significant protest movement, awareness by the general public, and a true step forward in self-management, and economic development through reversal of termination, and re-establishment of sovereign autonomy on the reservations. Professor Blackhawk cites the establishment of IAIA in Santa Fe, as a transformative experience in empowering this trend.

Ned Blackhawk has given us a major work of American history. It is straightforward, rigorous, non-apologetic, and non-accusative. (The facts and citations are damning on their own). The book is simply a presentation of a documented history that we have never entertained previously, one that fills in the blanks of time to give us a more complete story of our nation’s founding and evolution. Writing of the Cold War era, Professor Blackhawk states “For most Americans, Indian affairs seemed inconsequential.” Hopefully, that is no longer the case, but if so, perhaps this book, and its wide reach into our collective history, can help to change that.

If you can grapple with the early 18th century, and the mid-19th century quotations cited above, and believe that violent rhetoric is outdated in our country and world view, let us end with a quote by Mayor Herschel Melcher, Chamberlain, South Dakota, speaking about the urban migration of Native Americans as the treaties were offered “termination” in exchange for citizen rights and self-management: “We do not intend to let an Indian light around here at all. If they come in here it will be necessary to declare an open season on Indians….We do not want them and we see no reason why we should, and don’t want them in our schools.” This from the 1960s, not so long ago in our self-enlightened times. In other words, as Blackhawk points out. Indians threaten “the American way of life.” That is the very convoluted logic that we see today in the politicization of everything American.

Take the time to read and think through the work presented in this powerful history. It is well-worth your understanding of who and how we really are as a nation.

Casa Santa Fe: A Book Review

Casa Santa Fe: Design, Style, Arts and Tradition

Photography by Melba Levick
Text by Dr. Rubén Mendoza
Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.
Hardcover, $55.00
288 pages

Review by Pete Warzel

The book that set the “style”, Santa Fe Style by Christine Mather and Sharon Woods, was published thirty years ago, in April. The past six months seems to have opened the floodgates on related publications, with Santa Fe: Sense of Place and Santa Fe Modern both published at the end of 2022, and now Casa Santa Fe: Design, Style, Arts and Tradition just released in 2023. They all are hefty, elegant books, each taking that original look at Santa Fe homes and gardens a step further in breadth and quality of the photography.

David Skolkin designed this most recent book for Rizzoli. David did the scheme for our very own 2022 publication, Old Santa Fe Today, and although different in purpose, is just as elegant as the house-style publications.

Casa Santa Fe is a handsome, substantial book, replete with engaging photographs of the subject houses. Melba Levick, photographer, has contributed to over sixty books, including two other collaborations with archeologist and educator Dr. Rubén Mendoza – The California Missions and The Spanish Style House: From Enchanted Andalusia to the California Dream. Rizzoli has found a duo that presents very well.

The cover jacket is a photo of the Amelia Hollenback House, an extraordinary John Gaw Meem house built in 1932, that was the site of one of our Steward events in 2021, thanks to Temple and Mickey Ashmore. Coincidentally, the back jacket cover is an image of the Donaciano Vigil House, the location of another of our Steward events in 2022, hosted by Christopher Watson. (Both of these houses also have entries in the book proper). The Vigil House is listed on the Historic Santa Fe Foundation Register of Properties Worthy of Preservation, and wears our shield plaque proudly on its exterior adobe plaster wall. Four other homes on the HSFF Register are included in the book, with excellent interior photographs of each.

The book begins with a comprehensive introduction by Dr. Mendoza that addresses the pre-history and history of the Santa Fe area, evolution of architectural styles, and the architects who worked to present a livable, visually pleasing, built environment that stewards the heritage of the area. Casa Santa Fe presents elegant home facades, grounds, and interiors, in defined sections: Historic and Spanish Pueblo Revival, Meem houses, Collector’s homes, Eclectic adobes, Artists’ homes, houses of the Cinco Pintores, Ranches, and finally Contemporary homes. The broad survey is interspersed between home entries with two page photo essays on various subjects that flow from the preceding chapters: tins and lanterns, portales, fireplaces and hornos, nichos, and more. This structure provides a feast of visual elements that define design and style of how we envision the city’s architecture.

All of the homes are wonderfully presented. We obviously have interest, and pride, in the homes designated on the HSFF Register. Of special interest to me are several other houses that are stunning in design, or provide room for collections that define the space or its owners. Architect Beverley Spears’ family house is a contemporary adobe house with barrel vaulted ceilings, creating what Mendoza terms a “sanctuary for the owners.” In the “Collector” section of the book, the home of Christina and Curt Nonomaque pictures a shelf in a dining area, that holds an extraordinary collection of Patrocino Barela carvings, certainly the most I have ever seen in one place. J.B. Jackson’s house in La Cienega, now owned and restored by the artist Billy Schenck and Rebecca Carter, is an expansive museum of art and prehistoric ceramics. All fascinating. Each a special look at properties that are so individually, personally designed.

The book ends with a glossary of terms, completing the excellent survey of residential architecture that helps to define the aesthetic of northern New Mexico. It is an elegant reminder of why Santa Fe feels like home to so many of us around the world.

Lucie Genay's Under the Cap of Invisibility: A Book Review by Pete Warzel

Under the Cap of Invisibility: The Pantex Nuclear Weapons Plant and the Texas Panhandle
By Lucie Genay
Foreword by Alex Hunt
University of New Mexico Press
Hardcover
304 pages
$85.00

Book review by Pete Warzel

There are three clues that Under the Cap of Invisibility is a scholarly work from a university press. The first is that academic books tend to have subtitles with more words than the title proper. Check. The second is that fifty eight pages of notes and twelve full pages of bibliography are a dead giveaway. The third is price. At $85 this is an academic work. That is unfortunate because although the research is impeccable, it does not read like a bookish treatise, rather it moves with the verve and good writing of a literary thriller. Lucie Genay writes a very good story. The UNMP may have priced themselves out of a popular book.

Lucie Genay is an associate professor of US civilization in the American Studies Department of the University of Limoges, France. She has taught English and American history there since 2009 and has focused her research and writing on the nuclear history of New Mexico. This book crosses the border into the Panhandle of Texas and the very interesting social, economic, and cultural environment around Amarillo. Genay states at the start of the book, “The objective of this book is both historical and anthropological….” It is that double focus that makes the work so deeply fascinating and rings true with the cultural milieu that is home to Cadillac Ranch, that Stonehenge of deceased Cadillacs, and The Big Texan Steak Ranch, with its 72-ounce steak challenge.

So, Pantex. The book cover is photo of a Texas highway road sign that points to Pantex,   Amarillo, and Panhandle.  You would think it just another town east of New Mexico. One premise of the book is that Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC, the operator of Pantex for the US Department of Energy, would probably like you to think that, as hinted at by the main title – the cap of invisibility. I spoke to a friend of ours who has moved to Santa Fe from the Panhandle, and when asked about Pantex she was familiar with the name but could not remember what it was. My wife asked if it was town. Invisible.

Pantex is our country’s “sole assembly and disassembly plant for nuclear weapons….” The story here of its founding and obscure history fits the zeitgeist of the Panhandle. Nuclear and environmental protests struggled against a very compliant business climate in Amarillo until the local ranchers, deep in their history of the area, became concerned about the quality of water for their operations, for their cattle, and for their crops they were sending into the world in proximity to nuclear waste and accident.

Today there are 3,300 workers at this 16,000-acre facility on the Texas plains. Started as a conventional ordnance manufacturing plant during World War II, the facility evolved into several variations of nuclear-warhead assembly, disassembly, and storage. It is big business for Amarillo and Randall County, but comes with the gradual development of a good deal of angst in the local population. Genay takes a very close look at the political and sociological makeup of Amarillo and the surrounding county: conservative, religious, independent minded, and the tough can-do attitude blended with the business-first attitude of the state of Texas. Then of course there is the huge benefit of jobs and ancillary economics for the city. The benefits and historic attitude evolve to an attitude towards Pantex as the “benevolent nuclear bomb manufacturer…,” “benevolent” being the key word, “bomb manufacturer” not so much discussed. “The story of this book is how the pressure of pursuing growth can lead communities to willfully relinquish critical oversight and participate in the invisibility of the makers of their success.” The slogans printed at the plant and the newsletter sent out to employees tell of propaganda directed at a very willing population, the result being economic, religious, and patriotic excuses for living with fear.

Until the nuclear protests began, and then environmental activist appearances on site, Pantex existed quietly, mostly invisibly, in the countryside. There begins a questioning and some friction, and Genay dissects the religious arguments, the philosophic investigations of good for the country, supporting defending freedom by nuclear deterrence through manufacturing, and the “In God We Trust” attitude of a patriotic population.

She gives the entire history of place and function, setting a stage for the rationalization of the pros and cons, benefits and risks without taking a side, rather letting the facts and the people speak, and the book speaks so clearly in doing so. She waits until the final chapter to let the workers speak, as accidents and illness come to the fore, having been hidden in the history presented. Making an analogy to the canary in the coalmine trope, one worker states, “’We are those canaries.’  The pride remains of having worked on weapons that help to ‘keep this country free…,’” but there is a realization locally that “the same weapons had put workers ‘in bondage to illnesses.’”

A lot of this is unknown or forgotten history. Having lived in Denver for years I have not thought about the Rocky Flats plant disaster in a very long time. My memory was tweaked by this book, as well as the memory of my wife, Denise, who transferred from Atlanta to Denver with IBM, to serve their customer at Rocky Flats. I asked her about her experience there in database management during 1986 and 1987, and she said they knew something was up, there were whisperings, but she believed, as did most people there, that surely the government would not put people in jeopardy knowingly. The thick concrete walls assured safety. Ironic then that Pentax was a target site for the transference of plutonium pits for storage from Rocky Flats, after it was forced to shut down due to the disastrous waste chemicals and plutonium contamination following the “Operation Desert Glow” raid by the FBI in 1989.  Pu pits are the hollow spheres of plutonium that are the core of the nuclear warhead or bomb. When explosives compress the sphere, a nuclear explosion occurs.

Lucie Genay has done extensive research for a scholarly history of this almost invisible plant on the Panhandle plains of Texas, 72 miles across I-40 to the state border at the ghost town of Glenrio, Texas/New Mexico, straddling both states. She makes the connections to the other nuclear sites situated in the American west – away from major populations but inherently making the inference that this geographic population does not matter very much.  She has written an excellent, readable book of parallel lives and stories that is a necessary and fascinating read.