Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition
by Marc Reisner
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Book Summary Information
Author: Marc ReisnerEdition: Paperback
Published: 1993-01-01
ISBN: 0140178244
Number of pages: 608
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition
Book Review: Ahead of its time
Summary: 5 Stars
This was a return engagement to "Cadillac Desert", as I had read the original in the 1980s, amazed at the time, considering it a premier example of thorough history and analysis in a subject about which few people knew much at all. What could have been a "dry" subject was actually quite gripping and informative, and fortunate to have many participants in key moments still available.
In that sense the author was ahead of his time, documenting essential history that looks all the more important twenty years later. No doubt the book would still be fresh history to many, especially if supplemented by some other source on more current topics. I can only imagine what Mr. Reisner would think of the explosive growth of Las Vegas in the barren Nevada desert in recent years.
I finally got to the revised edition and certainly feel the loss of Marc Reisner, who would have had plenty of material for another revision or two. The additional material is a plus, although it, too, has been around long enough for either edition to be a worthwhile reference.
The growth of Los Angeles and the whole situation with the Owens Valley, San Fernando Valley, William Mulholland, the Chandlers, and so on, is exceptional, and can be read almost on its own. Perhaps there is a more definitive history, with more emphasis on some individuals or some other angle. Reisner packs a punch, laying it all out bluntly, including the fraud and corruption along with social and technical aspects.
Another favorite was the early history of the unexplored West, such as John Wesley Powell's prescience and his journey down the virgin Colorado. How much the region has changed in such a short time, and how extensive were our errors.
This is a first-rate history.
Summary of Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition
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!Part One Of Two Parts
The story of the American West is the story of the relentless quest to control and allocate nature's most common, and the West's most precious, resource: water. CADILLAC DESERT recounts this dramatic saga.
The early settlers were lured by free land. But there was not enough water to sustain them, and they drifted on. Only the Mormons stayed, carefully tending a system of irrigation canals that tempered perpetual drought. Their success gave birth to federal aid programs, principally the Bureau of Reclamation. Without the bureau, without Hoover, Shasta and Grand Coulee, the West as we know it would not exist.
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