Question:  How do you write a short history about the longest continuously occupied community in the United States?  Answer:  You don't. You ask the experts to characterize the past with a profound hope its strengths will live into the future. The persons who have crafted this book are all Tucsonans. None were born here, but all call it home. However this book will be described by those who read it, it is not a book-by-committee but a book-by-consensus. In the authors' words, "Tucson, we believe, is too subtle to be encompassed by a single mind, too important to succumb to plastic modernity. Tucson is as Tucson was. And Tucson will only be if it recognizes and remembers the strength of its delicate desert setting." Tucson: A Short History focuses on the timeless character and multi-cultural heritage of a southwestern city. It tells the story of what the place is by nature, and what it has become by the presence of man. Its authors treat the environment sensitively, they explore its prehistory, and they describe Tucson's plural cultures through time. This heavily illustrated volume is a statement about a singular community with a hope that its past qualities will endure as the city experiences huge surges in development.   Contents "The Lead Cross Caper," Charles W. Polzer  "Ancients & Archaeologists," Thomas H. Naylor  "Blackrobes, Black Springs, and Beyond," Charles W. Polzer "Enemies and Allies," Thomas E. Sheridan  "Sonorenses, Tucsonenses," Thomas E. Sheridan  "Territorial Times," Charles W. Polzer  "Clouds, Spires, and Spines," Tony L. Burgess and Martha Ames Burgess "Images of Tucson--Past and Present," compiled by A. Tracy Row Distributed for the Southwest Mission Research Center