Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - February - 2004 Issue
South & Central America<br>From Flo Silver Books
Thomas H. MacDonald, longtime head of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads.
A number of titles cover South American art from the pre-Spanish era. Item 155 is The Art of Prehispanic Columbia ($35), item 165 is Pre-Columbian Art from Costa Rica ($15), item 188 is Before Cortes, Sculpture of Middle America ($65), and item 198 is Art Before Columbus, The Art of Ancient Mexico ($30). It doesn’t require a huge amount of imagination to realize that America 1491 is going to be about America before Columbus. Item 312. $35.
Item 42 is an English translation of Captain Bernal Diaz del Castillo work The True History of the Conquest of Mexico, written in 1568. This is a London printing from 1800 (the frontis map is in facsimile). $450. A 1927 reprint of this title is available for $45 (item 43).
There are a couple of books available for those interested in photography of the Amazon. Amazonia by Loren McIntyre is described as a “photo-essay of the exotic splendor of Amazonia: misty cloud forests, portraits of people and wild creatures in their native habitats, and the Amazon River system.” Item 318. $35. Vanishing Amazon by Mirella Ricciardi is described as a “photo-essay of the Indian cultures of the Amazon rainforest: the Kampa, the Marubo and the Yanomami.” Item 428. $30.
When someone mentions “pyramids,” the chances are that Mexico is not the first country to come to your mind. Nevertheless, there are pyramids in Mexico (and elsewhere in the New World), but no one is really sure why. Was there contact between the old and new worlds at the time Egypt was building pyramids, 2,000 years before Columbus? Item 523 is Peter Tompkins’ Mysteries of the Mexican Pyramids, which covers exploration of these sites, from the early explorers to recent archaeological investigations. $35. Items 524-526 are other copies of this work, priced at $15-$20.
Finally, item 573 is a photo-album of pictures taken at a Pan American congress of roads in Brazil in 1925. There are road scenes along with many people. It is not known who most of the people are, but one was identified by the previous owner of this album as Thomas Harris MacDonald, then Chief of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads. MacDonald served as Chief or Commissioner of the Bureau of Public Roads (now Federal Highway Administration) from 1919-1953. When he took office, America had roughly a quarter-million miles of primarily unpaved roads. When he retired, the country had 3.5 million miles of paved highways. MacDonald also directed the construction of the Alaskan Highway and supervised expenditures for the building of the Inter-American Highway through Central America. $200.
Flo Silver Books may be reached at 317-255-5118 or by email at Flosilver@aol.com.
