Bookshelf

Phoenix: The History of a Southwestern Metropolis, by Bradford Luckingham. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1989. 316 pages. Available through Arizona Highways, 2059 W. Lewis Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85009, telephone (602) 258-1000. $29.95, hardcover, plus $2.50 postage.

James Cook, who writes a history column for The Arizona Republic, once remarked that Phoenix didn't just grow; it has always been a "promoted" city. In this much-needed history of the Arizona capital, Bradford Luckingham takes as his theme the observation that throughout the 20th century the city has expanded by virtue of active boosting from private and public interests. This has always been the case. It has been true since the time of John T. Alsap, first mayor of Phoenix, and it continues to this day under the tenure of Mayor Terry Goddard. Almost from its founding, Phoenix (at first dubbed, unpromisingly, "Pumpkinsville") was the dominant urban center of the Salt River Valley. The infant town began as an agricultural community, but a series of technological and political developments-the arrival of the railroad, selection as territorial capital, construction of Roosevelt Dam, New Deal programs, World War II training bases, charter government, and availability of air-conditioning-spurred a constant, sometimes explosive growth pattern.

Today Phoenix is the tenth largest city in the nation. It has reached a kind of urban critical mass that makes possible the social and cultural benefits characteristic of a big city rather than a sizable town. The performing arts are taking a firmer hold. Museums, higher education, professional sports, efforts to improve public transport, and public programs for the poor, the abused, and the sick are gaining attention. A few superb places to eat, shop, and play rival the high spots of New York or San Francisco.

All these advances are the result of almost unbridled boosterism. This influence has not been wholly benign, as Luckingham's book indicates; with the good life have come despoiled desert and hillsides, nerve-racking traffic, some of the worst air in the country, polluted water, and arrays of skyscrapers of uneven quality that transformed a once-gracious central city neighborhood into yet another faceless commercial district.

Luckingham, a professor of history at Arizona State University, traces these developments from 1867 to the late 1980s. His prose is comfortable and easy to follow, yet the substance of the book is solid. A highly professional history, long overdue and most welcome.

The Arizona Gun Owner's Guide, by Alan Korwin. Bloomfield Press, Phoenix, 1989. 125 pages. $6.95, softcover.

This is not a book about the right of a citizen to own guns. Rather, it addresses the responsibilities that gun ownership implies. In concise language, it describes the gun laws of the State of Arizona. Also emphasized in the text are 50 firearms safety rules, along with such information as who may carry arms, how, and where. If you own a gun, this book is indispensable.

In a preface, Arizona's Attorney General Bob Corbin writes: "Gun ownership is a serious responsibility. I believe that The Arizona Gun Owner's Guide willhelp make Arizona a safer place in which to live."

Before I Die: A Creative Legacy, by Thérèse Donath. Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 1989. 148 pages. $17.95, hardcover.

This is a collection of letters exchanged by two women who aspired to be writers. On rare occasions, a tyro writer with some genuine talent meets a goodhearted editor. Donath's friend, Virginia A. Greene, was one such, and she achieved modest success when she found a market for three articles in Arizona Highways. But free-lance journalism is neither well paid nor a romantic endeavor, and even its most successful practitioners suffer the overwork and chronic neurosis evident in this correspondence. The book reaches a climax of pathos after Greene comes to believe she has contracted cancer. It is a document that says much about the way Western society treats middle-aged women and creative minds. -V.H.

(BACK COVER) This Frank Lloyd Wright design was completed in 1922 for the Lake Tahoe Summer Colony in California. Pencil and colored pencil on tracing paper, 22 by 17 inches. For other selections from the work of the famous architect and information on an important exhibition, see the article beginning on page 38.