CORONADO AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOUTHWEST

A detailed if unexciting account of the Spanish explorer's unsuccessful attempts to find gold in what is now the Southwest ""eighty years before the Pilgrim Fathers sighted Plymouth Rock."" Frequent anticipations eliminate any suspense, moldy cliches undermine much that could have been more valuable as scholarship--explanation of Pueblo customs, numerous etymologies of place names--and unrestrained generalizations are rampant (""every Indian was an artist""; ""all sons of Spain were warriors bred, and quick to learn the trade of conquest""). It is a familiar kind of hero glorification (""Coronado, soldier of Spain, governor of New Galicia, crusader, gold hunter, legend chaser, the last of the great conquerors of the New World""), although less flamboyant than the Garst portrait in Three Conquistadors, and more comprehensive than Meredith's oblique Riding with Coronado. Most of the photographs are too small to be of much value and the essential map is unfortunately on the end papers, but the index doubles as a key to ""unusual"" (i.e. Spanish and Indian) pronunciations.