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Based on more than a decade of research, Cadillac Desert is a stunning expos� and a dramatic, intriguing history of the creation of Eden -- an Eden that may be only a mirage.
The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruptions and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants, the Bureau of Reclamation and the US Army Corps of Engineers, in the competition to transform the West.
- Sales Rank: #2871012 in Books
- Published on: 2017-06-06
- Formats: Audiobook, CD
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 19
- Running time: 86400 seconds
- Binding: Audio CD
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
''When archaelogists from another planet sift through the bleached bones of our civilization, they may conclude that our temples were dams, says Reisner in this angry, exhaustive and gracefully written account of America's quest to turn the inhospitable, irredeemably dry West into a Garden of Eden…Not the first book on the subject, but one of the best.'' --Kirkus Reviews
''[This] timely and important book should be required reading for all citizens.'' --Publishers Weekly
''Cadillac Desert describes serious, perhaps fatal threats to the miraculous desert civilization of the West…Take[s] effective aim at the vested interests that perpetuate unsound water resource development.'' --Library Journal
''Beautifully written and meticulously researched.'' --St. Louis Post-Dispatch
''Cadillac Desert is timely and of national importance. Hurry up and read this book.'' --Washington Post
''A revealing, absorbing, often amusing, and alarming report.'' --New York Times Book Review
''Masterful…Among the most influential environmental books published by an American since Silent Spring.'' --San Francisco Examiner
About the Author
Marc Reisner (1948-2000) was, in Jim Harrison's words, ''in the upper echelon of those defending the environment with conscience, intelligence, and energy.'' Born in St. Paul, Reisner was a staff writer for the Natural Resources Defense Council from 1972 to 1979, and received the Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship in 1979 to investigate water resources in the West. His book Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award.
Most helpful customer reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
He Had Me at Ozymandias
By Mystery Lover
I have lived in Arizona for only about three years and have become quite fascinated by the history of water in the West (I'm from Illinois). This book came highly recommended by a Phoenix landscape architect and I can't thank him enough for suggesting it.
Cadillac Desert is a compelling and often riveting description of Western water history, beginning with Joseph Smith and his Mormon followers who upon arriving in the Great Basin begin almost immediately digging irrigation canals into the surrounding desert. In the introduction, Reisner says, "Confronted by the desert, the first thing Americans want to do is change it." And, he spends the rest of the book documenting in great detail all of the ways in which we (largely through the Bureau of Reclamation and the Corps of Engineers) have attempted to turn an arid environment into one that supports millions of people AND a robust agricultural economy.
This book is anything but dull. Reisner was a great writer and his engaging tale pulls no punches. While the sheer number of dams and water control projects can be virtually mind-numbing, he treats these projects with the deft hand of a good story-teller. Every project gets the analysis and insight of someone trying to solve a mystery and often failing; many of these projects should not have been built. Some of them fail with catastrophic consequences and, in the end, some of them are destroyed.
Reisner lays bare the human hubris required to think of all of this as perfectly normal and beautifully captures its essence in facing his title page with the poem "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
This book was first published in 1986 with a revised edition released in 1993. The value in this is that reading it now (in 2015) the reader can even more easily see the folly in trying to convert desert into farmland and supporting multiple thriving metropolises on very little water.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Western US water history and issues -- a classic must-read
By James T Dakin
This 1986 tour de force examines water and dams in the mostly arid Western US. Topics addressed in detail include, but are not limited to, the Army Corp of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, California Aqueduct, California Water Wars, Central Arizona Project, Colorado River, Grand Coulee Dam, Glen Canyon Dam, Hoover Dam, John Wesley Powell, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Mono Lake, Ogallala Aquifer, Owens Valley, Teton Dam, and William Mulholland.
Underlying the encyclopedic scope of “Cadillac Desert” are two basic themes.
First, the settlers lured to the arid West by the railroads and the US Federal Government in the 19th century needed cheap water to support agriculture on their 160 acre parcels of land, and also for their growing cities such as Los Angeles. Cheap hydroelectric power was often a secondary need, essential to pumping water. This need was met by projects of the Bureau of Reclamation and the Corps of Engineers. The projects were generally promoted by local congressmen, who supported each other’s projects. In the long term this endeavor has been subsidized by US taxpayers since return revenues from the projects have generally fallen fall far short of plan.
Second, the projects and dams have been an escalating source of controversy. For the most part the projects have not been economically justifiable, especially the irrigation projects, and especially the more recent projects. Also, the dams have created lasting problems -- salination of irrigated soil; silt accumulation behind the dams; environmental devastation to streams, salmon fisheries, and migratory birds; an overstretched US Federal budget, etc. Cheap hydroelectric power has also enabled groundwater pumping which is depleting aquifers. The taxpayer subsidized benefits of cheap water have often gone to large corporate agriculture, not the small farmers for whom the water was intended. By the later part of the 20th century the public sentiment had largely turned away from building ever more dams, and indeed toward removing some of the existing ones.
The individual chapters of “Cadillac Desert” are often mesmerizing, instilling a sense of outrage in the civic and history minded reader. The chapter on the 1976 Teton Dam failure is a great example. If the leaders and promoters had thoughtfully considered the economics of the dam, or the geology of the site, the dam would never have been built in the first place. But built it was and fail it did. The spectacularly devastating failure is now used as a case study in engineering courses, providing an example of mistakes at all levels and by all of those involved.
While Reisner does seem long winded at times, it is worthwhile staying with “Cadillac Desert” to the end. On one hand, it provides many interrelated perspectives on water and the West. It also ends on a somewhat positive note as the many constituencies involved seem to be converging on a more rational approach to future water usage in the West.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
MOST ILLUMINATING!!! A fascinating read!!
By Harvey
Absolutely fascinating. I lived in California for some 34 years and had no idea as to the history of how Los Angeles got it's water, other than knowing that a good portion came from the Colorado River. This book is thoroughly researched, and deals not just with California but with the water problems and development of the entire U.S. arid West. I had no idea as to the building of the great (and then not so great) dams starting in the late 20's early 1930s, starting with Hoover Dam. Also fascinating treatment as to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the competition with the Corp. of Engineers, and the Congressional pork barrel system that fueled the building of more and more dams and water projects, necessary or not. AND one wonders what will happen as the dams eventually silt up even as the population of cities such as L.A., Phoenix, Tuscon, Denver increase exponentially, as they have and continue to do. Indeed, when I moved to Calif. in 1970 the state's population was about 19 million; today it is about 38 million, DOUBLE that!! And Southern Calif. is basically an arid or at best a semi-arid desert!! This book was written in the late 1980's\early 1990's; one can only surmise how the author would be talking about the extreme Calif. drought now in it's 4th year. Calif gets much of it's water from 'snow-packs', from the Sierra Nevada to the Rockies (which feed the Colorado River). The CA Governor recently stood on bare ground up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and said he should be standing on 5 feet of snow!!! Yet, as the author points out (and I observed living in So. Calif.) the only thing grown in So. Calif. is no longer orange groves, but housing developments (usually in my opinion rather noxious with their same tile roofs, and built 10 ft apart). And they are still going up by the droves on every hill and valley!! The ultimate question is where is the water going to come from to support all this, especially with the effects of climate change, now thought to be at least in part responsible for the current extreme drought??? Anyway, fascinating book (not a short read, for sure) and I learned much as to the development of California and the West. It's all about WATER!!! Harvey (p.s.: I now live back East).
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