Thirty packrat (Neotoma spp.) middens collected from boulder fields near Cataviña, Baja California, Mexico, at 640–680 m elevation provide the first long chronology of macrofossils and pollen spanning the late Quaternary in the Central Desert of Baja California. Midden plant macrofossil and pollen assemblages document a rich chaparral/woodland assemblage during the last glacial and early Holocene dominated by Parry pinyon (Pinus quadrifolia) and California juniper (Juniperus californica) until 11,630 cal yr BP. This indicates chaparral/woodland had a much more extensive distribution in what are now desert elevations in northern and central Baja California. In contrast to late glacial and early Holocene midden records from northeastern Baja, the Cataviña middens of the same age lack plants adapted to warm season precipitation, suggesting that decreased temperatures and evapotranspiration during the growing season and enhanced winter precipitation, with little contribution from summer rains, supported the lowering of chaparral/woodland species distributions in central Baja California. Cataviña middens also record endemic desert plant taxa mixed in with chaparral/woodland species during the Pleistocene, persisting throughout the Holocene, followed by the quick arrival of other desert species after ∼11,000 cal yr BP. Baja California remains a high-potential yet poorly sampled area for packrat midden research in North America.

This review article discusses three recent volumes: Edmund Harris, The Rogue Goths: R L Roumieu, Joseph Peacock and Bassett Keeling (2024); Peter N Lindfield, The Intimacies of George Shaw (1810–76): diaries and letters of a Gothic architect, antiquary and forger (2024); Nicholas Olsberg (photographs by James Morris) The Master Builder William Butterfield and His Times (2024). Taken together, these books show that the architect-monograph can still make an important contribution to our understanding and appreciation of the Gothic Revival. Nicholas Olsberg’s book is a tour de force, contextualising this great master and, at the same time, writing with great sensitivity about his aesthetic genius. The accompanying photographs commissioned specially for the book capture the strange presence that distinguishes so much of Butterfield’s architecture. Peter Lindfield brings to life an important regional figure who entered the field without any real training. Shaw was self-taught and his career combined dealing, decorative arts and interiors and architectural design, spanning the gap between amateur and professional. Finally, there is Edmund Harris’ insightful analysis of three architects known for their stylistic invention but whose careers to this point have been little understood. The present review contextualises these studies in the modern historiography of the Gothic Revival.