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Colonel Richard Morgan Szybist,
USA (ret.) “holds graduate degrees in education and Latin American studies from, respectively, Seton Hall University
and the University of Arizona. He is a graduate of the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. and served as chairman
of the Department of Military Education at Rutgers University. Morgan is founder and director of Adventures in Education,
Inc. and lives at Lake Atitlan.” Colonel Richard Morgan Szybist is the author of The Lake Atitlan Reference
Guide: The Definitive Eco-Cultural Guidebook on Lake Atitlan and A Guide to Historic Missions and Churches of the Arizona-Sonora
Borderlands. He is also the editor of Fables & Other Mayan Tales of Atitlan.
According to the book description of
The Lake Atitlan Reference Guide: The Definitive Eco-Cultural Guidebook on Lake Atitlan, “The
Lake Atitlan Reference Guide is an eco-cultural guide to the lake identified by Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) as "the
most beautiful lake in the world." Atitlan is a volcanic caldera, located at 5,000 ft above sea level in the Mayan highlands
of Guatemala. Atitlan means "at the water." It is a fusion of simple Nahuatl words that belies
the complexity of the entity it identifies.
Lake Atitlan is both a place and an
event in motion. Its life incorporates the visually stunning character of one of nature’s most ambitious creations and
the extraordinarily diverse cultural character of the human life that the Lake has drawn to its shores.
Atitlan was born violently, long ago,
probably before the emergence of man here. Scientists still debate the exact nature of its birth, an event which created a
nearly circular depression of 11 miles in diameter, 95 square miles of area, and over 1,000 feet deep. The cause of this huge
cavity, a chain of events which began with an immense eruption, produced a unique microenvironment that has been drawing wanderers
to the Lake’s shores for at least thousands of years. Cultures have clashed to control it. Vagabonds have been absorbed
by it, laid down roots, and quit "moving on." Traveling notables have been overwhelmed by its beauty and written
about it in the loftiest of terms.
Any effort to empirically order the
kaleidoscope of its elements is ultimately challenged by the spiritual and physical immensity of the subject. This work makes
no such attempt. What is offered here instead is a summary of the Lake environment in terms of its physical location and nature,
its cultural history, and its contemporary political and socioeconomic life. The text is supported by more than 100 quality
fotos (most in color) and a variety of other illustrations.”
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