Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition [Kindle Edition] Author: Marc Reisner | Language: English | ISBN:
B001RTKIUA | Format: PDF, EPUB
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Download books file now Download Epub Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition from with Mediafire Link Download Link "Beautifully written and meticulously researched."—St. Louis Post-Dispatch. This updated study of the economics, politics, and ecology of water covers more than a century of public and private desert reclamation in the American West.
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- File Size: 3632 KB
- Print Length: 608 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books; Revised edition (June 1, 1993)
- Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B001RTKIUA
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
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- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,391 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Science > Nature & Ecology > Water Supply & Land Use - #2
in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Water Supply & Land Use
- #1
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Science > Environment > Water Supply - #1
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Science > Nature & Ecology > Water Supply & Land Use - #2
in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Water Supply & Land Use
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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