Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition Paperback Author: Marc Reisner | Language: English | ISBN:
0140178244 | Format: PDF, EPUB
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Amazon.com Review
The definitive history of water resources in the American West, and a very illuminating lesson in the political economy of limited resources anywhere. Highly recommended!
Review
A revealing, absorbing, often amusing, and alarming report. --
The New York Times Book ReviewReisner captures Western water history in Cinemascope and Technicolor. Cadillac Desert is timely and of national importance. Hurry up and read this book. --
The Washington Post See all Editorial Reviews
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- Paperback: 608 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books; Revised edition (June 1, 1993)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0140178244
- ISBN-13: 978-0140178241
- Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
I am somewhat ashamed to have read this book only recently. I should have read this one years ago.
Well, better late than never, and I am pleased to report that it deserves its enduring reputation.
...But let me assume that I am writing this "review" for an audience that is neither familiar with Reisner's book nor aware of the role water development has played in every aspect of the history of the American West, particularly of California.
Briefly, the history of water development contains the whole story of the West, from start to present. Early modern irrigation worked miracles and opened to the plow land previously unavailable for agriculture -- land that now feeds the nation and much of the world. If it were not for these early, massive hydro-projects, not one of the great cities of the West would be even conceivable, millions upon millions of people would and could never have considered settling the western half of the continent. Of course, there was a massive cost accompanying all of these benefits, measurable in human as well as environmental terms, but in those days the cost-benefit analysis was easy.
Building upon early irrigation successes, two government agencies -- the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers, may they both live forever in infamy -- garnered unto themselves massive power and independence, which they used to keep on building dam after dam after dam. The problem was not so much (at the time the dams were built) that the environmental costs were higher with every dam, until there now remains no wild river beyond the hundredth meridian of any significance whatsoever, precious little habitat for migratory birds, mass extinctions, etc., etc., tragically etc.
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