"Desire took C. M. Mayo to Baja California again and again. But it was longing for understanding and for a sense of real connection that produced this exquisite book, a rare jewel in the literature of Mexico and of its little-known peninsula.". "Impassioned as a memoir, immediate as today's headlines, sweeping as the three centuries of history it traces, Miraculous Air unfolds before us, a deep map of place - rich, detailed, and nuanced. Cleaved from the Mexican mainland by the Sea of Cortes, separated from North America by a sea of cultural, economic, political, and historical difference, Baja California is, in the words of Fernando Jordan, "the other Mexico" - apart and strange. Nearly one thousand miles long, most of the peninsula is sand and rock; a labyrinth of sierra forms its spine, rising massive against the sky and the light-dazzled sea."--BOOK JACKET.