Cadillac Desert The American West & Its Disappearing Water

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Average customer rating 3.7 (3 comments)

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I don't recall a better researched non-fiction book that I have read. The detail is amazing and the hubris and mendacity revealed is shocking. The U.S. embarked on a dam-building spree in the 1930s that allowed the cities of Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas and the ridiculous California agribusiness industry to thrive in the desert with no thought to the inevitable dam siltation and soil salinization that would result. He argues that no irrigation-based civilization survived, and neither will this one. No one, not even Tom McCall and Jerry Brown, were able to hold onto their principles in the onslought of pressure to build more dams and despoil the environment. Reisner died in 200o at the age of 51. I wish he were still alive to add to this book. I couldn't help but think that this is the America Donald Trump wishes to return us to. Government agencies serving the wealthy rather than regulating their vast greed. He argues effectively that the water projects of that era were corporate welfare at a devastating level and their contribution to the national debt was substantial. It's a brilliant book and well worth reading, though if you have grandchildren, you're going to wonder mightily what the future holds for them.

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25 years on, Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert remains the seminal record of water wars in the arid West. As we experience volatile climate change and staggering public debt, the follies of more than a century by the Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation set the stage for the mess we are in today out in the West. This remains one of the finest examples of non-fiction writing of our time; it is a joy to read and re-read.

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This is my favorite non-fiction book!! I'm stealing part of 2 reviews from a few guys on Better World Books that sums up my thoughts better than I could...and I completely reiterate that the PBS 4-part series (which I got from the local library) is HIGHLY recommended: Randy from The United States | Aug 31, 2008 : I read this for a book club and the four of us used it as a springboard for literally hours of conversation. This should be required reading for anyone who claims to be an informed citizen living in the American West. Max from Portland, OR | Mar 4, 2011 In 1986, Marc Reisner published a book called Cadillac Desert: The American West and its Disappearing Water. In it, Reisner fastidiously documents the appropriation of the West’s most valuable resources, water. The book, now 20 years old, prophetically detailed many of the problems of water supply and land degradation that we are now facing today. Water is the lifeblood of humanity and how we care for this resource will determine our fate. Cadillac Desert is scathing critique of American policy on water development, specifically towards the Bureau of Reclamation’s gun-slinging approach towards dam building. This book was the seminal work on water development and it reverberations will continue for however long we live in the Western United States. In all of Marc Reisner's work, he explores the relation humans have with their environment and how we have put extreme amounts of stress on that relationship. Throughout Cadillac Desert, Reisner describes the extent to which the government has augmented the environment of California, as succinctly described here: "The whole state thrives, even survives, by moving water from where it is, and presumably isn't needed, to where it isn't, and presumably is needed. No other state has done as much to fructify its deserts, make over its flora and fauna, and rearrange the hydrology God gave it. No other place has put as many people where they probably have no business being. There is no place like it anywhere on earth. Thirty-one million people (more than the population of Canada), an economy richer than all but seven nations' in the world, one third of the table food grown in the United States---and none of it remotely conceivable within the preexisting natural order (333)." Before Cadillac Desert, people looked at dams and other water developments as an example of human ingenuity and necessary for continued human existence. These leviathan alterations though have left nature severely scarred and Reisner uncompromisingly details the effects uncontrolled water development has had.