Excerpt
"Mention water to a Westerner whose great-grandparents homesteaded a patch of land as dry as a legal brief and listen to the stories flow. Water might not seem like a big deal to someone from a state that sloshes with rain, but people whose ancestors settled this water-shy region know that the West was won not by men on horseback with six-shooters hanging from their holsters, not by sheriffs with stars of tin pinned upon their chests and guns blazing in high noon shootouts. It was won by farmers and ranchers with irrigation shovels in hand—and by politicians and lawyers divvying up water rights in a dry land."
—From the Introduction