Desert Cities Law Offices

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

Description

Newly updated, this timely history of the struggle to discover and control water in the American West is a tale of rivers diverted and damned, political corruption and intrigue, billion-dollar battles over water rights, and economic and ecological disaster. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award.

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!

Reviews

Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2010-06-13
Summary: "Classic must read WAY overpriced"

The Kindle edition price, like many Kindle edition prices, is designed to kill the ebook industry before it even gets going. The author is dead for crying out loud, who's getting this money? Well no one because $15 is about $10 too much.
Geez.

Get the softcover and read it twice. Brilliant piece of work.

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Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2010-02-25
Summary: "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?'

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-01-15
Summary: "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.

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2009-12-18
Summary: "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.

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2009-10-13
Summary: "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.