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Title: Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner ISBN: 0-14-017824-4 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 01 January, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.67 (60 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: A Classic of Western History
Comment: Surely the 59 other reviews that are listed below have covered much of what there is to say about "Cadillac Desert". Resiner has an engaging writing style that veers occasionally into rage and anger. He, um, doesn't much care for the Bureau of Reclamation or the Army Corps of Engineers, although much of his fury is spend on the Bureau. Why, I wonder, did the Army Corps get off so easy?
This book actually reads like a series of shorter articles placed together. The book lacks clear sense of direction. The last couple of chapters dealing with "case studies" of specific Dam sites can only be described as "tiresome". However, his early chapters, those dealing with the beginning of irrigation in the west, are fascinating.
Personally, I am totally interested in the history of the Salton "Sea" and the mere fact that Reisner devotes several pages to the subject was enough to make reading half this book worthwhile. The other half was made worth while by the fact that I no longer have to pretend that I've read this book, now I've actually read it!
Is it me, or this one of those books you're supposed to read as an undergraduate?
One final note, this book makes for an interesting companion read with Imperial San Francisco, by Gary Brechin.
Rating: 5
Summary: The best book on Water politics
Comment: Marc Reisner wrote a classic for the Water ecology set. You will learn so much information that rarely makes it in the news, yet is far more important than the news.
Within this book, Reisner explains how water resources are misused due to poor government water policies. The Bureau of Water Reclamation sells water to Western farmers for virtually nothing. In turn, these farmers waste this precious resource by growing rice (the most water intensive crop with the lowest market value) in desertic areas. As a result, farmers use about 75% of all water consumption in the West.
This book written over 15 years ago explains the underlying trends to the current water crisis in California. But, as depicted in the book, this water crisis is entirely self induced by poor water management. We should not be growing water intensive crops (rice) in deserts with subsidized water thereby triggering a constraint on both our demographic and economic growth in the West.
With better water management, including a reduction in water subsidy, there would be plenty of water for everyone. This would include enough water to allow for demographic growth, industrial growth, and a thriving water efficient agricultural sector.
This book is as relevant today, as when it was first written.
Rating: 5
Summary: Required Reading for California 101
Comment: Two books are absolutely required reading in understanding California politics and its history: one of them is 'City of Quartz' by Mike Davis and the other is Reisner's 'Cadillac Desert'. No rock is left unturned in this well written treatise. All the chicanery, dirty deals and maneuvering are exposed. It is simply a juicy read.
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Title: A Dangerous Place : California's Unsettling Fate by Marc Reisner ISBN: 0679420118 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 11 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource by Marq de Villiers ISBN: 0618127445 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 12 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title:Marc Reisner's "Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water": A Study Guide from Gale's "Nonfiction Classics for Students" ASIN: B00006G3G9 Publisher: The Gale Group Pub. Date: 23 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $3.95 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $3.95 |
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Title: Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America's Fresh Waters by Robert Jerome Glennon ISBN: 1559632232 Publisher: Island Press Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West by Donald Worster ISBN: 0195078063 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: May, 1992 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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