Horror Book Reviews

Compare at: $18.00 (New)
Buy Now: $12.24 (New)

You Save: $5.76 (32%)

Add to Cart

Title: Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition
Score:
Author: Marc Reisner
Rating: Not available
Hits: 159

Review of Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition

[ Back to Homepage | Back to Horror Book Reviews Index ]

HellHorror.com not responsible for reviews/comments and they may be removed at any time.

Comments for Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition

• Posted on 2010-02-25
  Your tax dollars at work
  
  Interesting and informative. There may be some political bias here but the basic information is right on. You ended up asking 'Why am I subsidizing millionaire growers like the heirs of the Tribune fortune with my tax dollars?'
  
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
• Posted on 2010-01-15
  How did we get all these dams?
  
  If you're interested in the nitty gritty details and political struggles that led to the creation of America's obsession with dams, this is your book. Probably a little too detail oriented for a beginner but one of the most fascinating books that documents the politics, agencies, and mindsets that led to the creation of dams and irrigation all around the country.
  
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
• Posted on 2009-12-18
  Outsize ambitions in an outsize landscape
  
  This book, more than any other, influenced the course of my career. Fresh from college in California, I remember seeing this book in a bookstore (back before Amazon) and, intrigued, bought a copy. I grew up in California and, counterintuitively, was insulated from understanding the real costs and real impacts of water law and policy in my native state. Cadillac Desert opened my eyes and I've worked in environmental law and policy ever since.
  
  Reisner, may he rest in peace, wrote an impeccably researched, entertaining and even moving book about the saga of water in the American West. He chronicled not only the complicated and at times bizzarre history of Western water but also the antiquated and ill-considered laws that support the whole fragile network. He wrote with nuance about many of the grand characters involved, such as John Wesley Powell and William Mulholland. He wrote about the construction of the Hoover Dam and Grand Coulee Dam, and the failures of the Saint Francis Dam and the Teton Dam. He wrote about outsize ambitions in an outsize landscape.
  
  When I finished the book, I had the feeling that much needs to be done in this country to right-size our national ambitions and to re-work law and policy at the state and federal level to account for the natural limits of our geography. There are no infinite resources. Cadillac Desert is one of the best reasoned explanations of why we cannot keep doing what we're doing. I can't recommend it strongly enough.
  
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
• Posted on 2009-10-13
  How the west was (really) won
  
  Beautifully written, thoroughly researched, and highly enlightening, Cadillac Desert is one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read. I knew practically nothing about the subject of western settlement and water resources when I first picked up this book, but I feel now like I have a very good grasp on both issues. Reisner does a spectacular job of explaining the forces behind western settlement and the political and natural issues that made the west what it is today. I only wish there were a more updated version so I could learn how things have progressed in the last 20 or so years.
  
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
• Posted on 2009-10-07
  "...Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
  
  Reisner commences his book on the essential element of the American West, water, by quoting Shelley's "Ozymandias," with the observations of a traveler from an antique land. Of course there is nothing "antique" about the American West, if we discard the Indian experiences at such places as Chaco Canyon, and concentrate solely on the White Man's "mastery" of the environment. David Brooks, in a recent article in the New York Times, wrote a paean to the progress of yet more endless housing developments in Phoenix, (I'm serious!), without ever mentioning that five letter word that is the subject of Reisner's work.
  
  Reisner writes an engaging history, focusing on the folly of the settlement of the American West. He is scathing of the politicians, and equally so of the voters who put them in office, who all too often decry "socialism," while demanding immense government expenditures so they can use water in the most profligate of ways - growing crops in a climate not suited for them. The author does praise some of the politicians who saw the folly, like Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois, who had the temerity to point out that it was the worst perversion of New Deal ideas that a Reclamation program would be used to subsidize high-altitude desert farmers so they could grow crops that his own constitutes were being paid NOT to grow. The "water lobby," composed of the West's farmers, real estate developers, and engineers and construction workers virtually always triumphed, and one of the interesting points Reisner made is that Carter was made a one term president not only because of the Iranian hostage crisis, but because of his opposition to the most fiscally unsound dam projects in the West. Most politicians preferred accommodation to principle, or even reason, and notes that Governor Jerry Brown, after attending a funeral for E. F. Schumacher, of "Small is Beautiful" fame, flew back to California to lobby for a water project that costs more than the program to put man on the moon.
  
  The history encompasses the settlement of Utah by the Mormons, as well as the development of the railroads, and their corresponding need for people, particularly farmers, to make their enterprise more profitable. Soon promoters arose, such as William Gilpin, who solved the "no water" problem with assertions that "water will follow the plow," and that the Mississippi basin was suitable for the settlement of a billion people! Reisner has an excellent chapter of the water battles in the Owen River valley, and the eventual diversion of that water which made the massive expansion of Los Angeles possible. Later he covers efforts to divert the Klamath River towards the endless water needs of southern California. There are equally good chapters on the division and utilization of what the author calls the "American Nile," the Colorado River, starting with the original exploration, and vision of John Wesley Powell. Reisner has a knack for making the histories of various federal bureaucracies, such as the Bureau of Reclamation and the Corps of Engineers, as well as their principals, both fascinating and lucid. Imagine that two of those "principals," Ickes and Mike Straus cooked up the idea of hiring Woody Guthrie as a "research assistant" to write songs in praise of the dams - and that he actually did! Reisner went on to assert that there were two principal factors involved in the defeat of the Axis powers: Russian winters, and American hydroelectric capacity.
  
  The author also describes how the first President of the Sierra Club, David Brower, sacrificed Glen Canyon (something he has tried to atone for, throughout his subsequent life) in order to block the Echo Park Dam - one of the first "victories" for environmentalists. Reisner wryly notes that Corps of Engineer's regional director in Salt Lake City received a rubber slide rule from his staff for stretching the truth on the dam project.... Indeed, as Reisner convincingly demonstrates, the economic justification for almost all dam projects used the proverbial rubber slide rule.
  
  Other reviewers have criticized his style as "breezy," with some assertions unsubstantiated, and I would concur. There are redundancies, such as repeating, literally word for word, the costs involved in the Yuma plant's removal of salt for Mexico, and the corresponding price that irrigators pay for water upriver. ( It is almost 100 times more expensive!) He also got his facts wrong on Pinchot (p 81), who he claimed was from Pittsburgh, with a fortune derived from dry-goods. In reality, Pinchot was from eastern PA, with a fortune from timber.
  
  Overall though, a vital read for those living in the American West, on our most important issue, as well as for anyone else concerned with the intersections of "private rights," "public policy," and "wealth distribution."
  
  
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10