Synopses & Reviews
Fresh water has become scarce and will become even more so in the coming years, as continued population growth places ever greater demands on the supply of fresh water. At the same time, options for increasing that supply look to be ever more limited. No longer can we rely on technological solutions to meet growing demand. What we need is better management of the available water supply to ensure it goes further toward meeting basic human needs. But better management requires that we both understand the history underlying our current water regulation regime and think seriously about what changes to the law could be beneficial.
For Golden Rules, Mark Kanazawa draws on previously untapped historical sources to trace the emergence of the current framework for resolving water-rights issues to California in the 1850s, when Gold Rush miners flooded the newly formed state. The need to circumscribe water use on private property in support of broader societal objectives brought to light a number of fundamental issues about how water rights ought to be defined and enforced through a system of laws. Many of these issues reverberate in todayand#8217;s contentious debates about the relative merits of government and market regulation. By understanding how these laws developed across Californiaand#8217;s mining camps and common-law courts, we can also gain a better sense of the challenges associated with adopting new property-rights regimes in the twenty-first century.
Review
"The first book in 25 years by MacArthur-winning historian Limerick is an entertaining history of the Denver Water Board. (Stealing, even stealing water, is always good copy.) Best of all, this deftly wrought history banishes our complacency about where water originates."
The Daily Beast"Historian Patricia Nelson Limerick has done the impossible. She's made a history of the Denver Water Department interesting." The Denver Post
Review
Winner of the 2014 Barbara Sudler Award given by History Colorado
"The first book in 25 years by MacArthur-winning historian Limerick is an entertaining history of the Denver Water Board. (Stealing, even stealing water, is always good copy.) Best of all, this deftly wrought history banishes our complacency about where water originates." and#151;The Daily Beast
"Historian Patricia Nelson Limerick has done the impossible. She's made a history of the Denver Water Department interesting." and#151;The Denver Post
"Limerick offers a thought-provoking look at the complex and, at times, surprising relationship between the development of western cities and water. The author is known for her ability to speak to both the academy and general audiences. For example, in her celebrated book The Legacy of Conquest she shook the academy with a reinterpretation of the history of the American West. She does not disappoint her readers in A Ditch in Time. Through the case of the development of Denver, Colorado waterworks, Limerick meticulously details the coevolution of hydrologic technology and urban planning. Those that follow her detailed history, from the early 19th century up to present times, are rewarded with a greater understanding of and appreciation for what she calls "envirotech" history. This book demonstrates her continued emphasis on "applying historical perspective to contemporary dilemmas and conflicts." Interesting photographs, useful maps, and 20-plus pages of notes support the text. Summing Up: Highly recommended." and#151;CHOICE
Review
andldquo;There has not been much new in the property rights literature for some time, and Kanazawaandrsquo;s book, based on analysis of newspapers, nineteenth-century court cases, and early mining camp rules and company records, is a wonderful addition. It will have broad appeal among legal scholars, historians and students of the American West, political scientists studying local common pool resource management, and economists interested in the development and modification of property institutions and the role of transaction costs in influencing outcomes.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Itandrsquo;s hard to overstate the importance of the Gold Rush to property rights theorists, economists, and historians, and The Golden Rules tackles this important subject seamlessly, providing what will be the definitive analysis of this episode in American history.andrdquo;
Synopsis
A study of water and its unique role and history in the West, as well as in the nation.
Synopsis
The history of water development . . . offers a particularly fine post for observing the astonishing and implausible workings of historical change and, in response, for cultivating an appropriate level of humility and modesty in our anticipations of our own unknowable future.Tracing the origins and growth of the Denver Water Department, this study of water and its unique role and history in the West, as well as in the nation, raises questions about the complex relationship among cities, suburbs, and rural areas, allowing us to consider this precious resource and its past, present, and future with both optimism and realism.
Patricia Nelson Limerick is the faculty director and board chair of the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado, where she is also a professor of history and environmental studies. She currently serves as the vice president for the teaching division of the American Historical Association. Her most widely read book, The Legacy of Conquest, is in its twenty-fifth year of publication.
Jason L. Hanson is a member of the research faculty at the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where his work focuses on natural resource use and the environment. He lives in Denver.
About the Author
Patricia Nelson Limerick is the faculty director and board chair of the Center of the American West at Colorado University, where she is also a professor of history and environmental studies. She has received a MacArthur Fellowship and a number of other awards and honors. She currently serves as the vice president for the Teaching Division of the American Historical Association. Her most widely read book,
The Legacy of Conquest, is in its twenty-fifth year of publication.
Jason L. Hanson is a member of the research faculty at the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where his work focuses on natural resource use and the environment. He lives in Denver.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Economic Theory and the Evolution of Water Law
Chapter 3: Water and the Technologies of Mining
Chapter 4: Watering the Diggings: The Development of the Ditch Industry
Chapter 5: The Informal Law of the Mining Camps
Chapter 6: Origins of the Common Law of Mining and Water Rights
Chapter 7: The Origins of Prior Appropriation
Chapter 8: Water Quality and the Law of Nuisance
Appendix A
Chapter 9: Bursting Dams and the Law of Nuisance
Appendix B
Chapter 10: Conclusions
References
Index