PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewThe wistfulness of Escalante’s Dream arises...from Roberts’s physical and existential trials ... The book that results is an amiably discursive, often beguiling entry in what has become a venerable literary form: the expedition in pursuit of an expedition. Roberts knows his Southwestern history, and he knows how to craft an artful sentence. The one thing he doesn’t appear to know is just how cranky he sounds when people he meets along the way don’t share his Escalante enthusiasm ... no one can accuse David Roberts of lacking acquaintance with the truly treacherous.
Jack E. Davis
RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewIn Davis’s hands, the story reads like a watery version of the history of the American West. Both places saw Spanish incursions from the south, mutual incomprehension in the meeting of Europeans and aboriginals, waves of disease that devastated the natives and a relentless quest by the newcomers for the raw materials of empire … Davis has written a beautiful homage to a neglected sea, a lyrical paean to its remaining estuaries and marshes, and a marvelous mash-up of human and environmental history. He has also given us the story of how a once gorgeous place was made safe for the depredations of the petrochemical age.
