Rating: 
Summary: Important book regarding Western water
Review: Any history of the west has to deal with water. Stegner's biography of Powell describes Powell's career, in a largely engaging way. It's not a page-turner, but it gives you a good feel for the man. I appreciated it the most as I read it at the Grand Canyon while simultaneously reading Cadillac Desert. Stegner describes how Powell, a one-armed man, lead a rafting expedition down the Colorado river, complete with climbing up the sides of the Grand Canyon. Although some of the descriptions come across as a bit quaint these days, it's a valuable work. Reisner borrows from the story and its structure extensively when he writes about Powell in Cadillac Desert (probably the most important book about the water wars in the West).
Rating:
Summary: Important book regarding Western water
Review: Any history of the west has to deal with water. Stegner's biography of Powell describes Powell's career, in a largely engaging way. It's not a page-turner, but it gives you a good feel for the man. I appreciated it the most as I read it at the Grand Canyon while simultaneously reading Cadillac Desert. Stegner describes how Powell, a one-armed man, lead a rafting expedition down the Colorado river, complete with climbing up the sides of the Grand Canyon. Although some of the descriptions come across as a bit quaint these days, it's a valuable work. Reisner borrows from the story and its structure extensively when he writes about Powell in Cadillac Desert (probably the most important book about the water wars in the West).
Rating: 
Summary: Educational but not boring
Review: I kept waiting for this book to get boring. It has all the potential to be boring. But it's not. It's an excellent introduction to the history of the West. I learned little tidbits about all sorts of varied subjects - Native American tribes, government, the history of the USGS. Stegner does get a little too wrapped up in the details at a couple points, especially when he gets into all the wrangling in Congress over Powell's various ventures, but in general it's an excellent book.
Rating:
Summary: The Last Explorer
Review: If you are interesting in the history of the American west, this is required reading. John Wesley Powell was one of the last explorers of the American west and one of the first American scientific bureaucrats. He failed to correct the federal government policy in the West during the period of rapid settlement at the end of the 19th century, but he did succeed at establishing a tradition of federal support for science that has has a profound influence over the course of U.S. history.
Rating:
Summary: History of water in the west; rollicking adventure story
Review: Stegner is a prolific historian of the American West, as well as a prolific author of fiction. To my mind, his nonfiction is always a notch better than even the best of his fiction; to my mind, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian is the best of the lot.To be sure, my view that this one is his best is likely colored by my impression that it treats the most important issues dealt with within Stegner's œuvre, namely, the question of water use in the American West. However, independent of the book's importance in understanding the history of water use, it is also a rollicking adventure tale of a one-armed madman shooting hellacious rapids the likes of which our continent no longer knows, while strapped to a wooden boat. Powell was a brilliant, eccentric man, and the United States would be a better place if the policies he suggested had been intelligently implemented (rather than first ignored and subsequently mis-applied). His life is well worth learning about.
Rating:
Summary: History of water in the west; rollicking adventure story
Review: Stegner is a prolific historian of the American West, as well as a prolific author of fiction. To my mind, his nonfiction is always a notch better than even the best of his fiction; to my mind, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian is the best of the lot. To be sure, my view that this one is his best is likely colored by my impression that it treats the most important issues dealt with within Stegner's œuvre, namely, the question of water use in the American West. However, independent of the book's importance in understanding the history of water use, it is also a rollicking adventure tale of a one-armed madman shooting hellacious rapids the likes of which our continent no longer knows, while strapped to a wooden boat. Powell was a brilliant, eccentric man, and the United States would be a better place if the policies he suggested had been intelligently implemented (rather than first ignored and subsequently mis-applied). His life is well worth learning about.
Rating:
Summary: Powell Looks Even Wiser 100 Years Later
Review: This book written in 1954 not only captures the story of this remarkable man, Major John W. Powell, but also discusses and reflects on the challenges of too many people living in the Western desert. As a resident of a now "drought impacted state" the wisdom of Powell's ideas and the lack of implementation of those ideas are represented in the chaos local and state governments are facing as they attempt to keep lawns green, golf courses open, and drinking water available for all of the "new" residences of the state. I only hope that some of this generations politicians pay attention to Powell's "topographical" analysis and begin shaping more effective land and water policy for the West. A terrific read with many classic Stegner quotes.
Rating:
Summary: Powell Looks Even Wiser 100 Years Later
Review: This book written in 1954 not only captures the story of this remarkable man, Major John W. Powell, but also discusses and reflects on the challenges of too many people living in the Western desert. As a resident of a now "drought impacted state" the wisdom of Powell's ideas and the lack of implementation of those ideas are represented in the chaos local and state governments are facing as they attempt to keep lawns green, golf courses open, and drinking water available for all of the "new" residences of the state. I only hope that some of this generations politicians pay attention to Powell's "topographical" analysis and begin shaping more effective land and water policy for the West. A terrific read with many classic Stegner quotes.
Rating:
Summary: One of the few essential books on the American West
Review: This classic work is a penetrating and insightful study of the public career of Maj. John Wesley Powell, from the beginning of the Powell Survey, which most famously had Powell and his men descend for the first time by anyone the Colorado River, to his eventual ouster from the Geological Survey. Stegner does a magnificent job of detailing both the myriad accomplishments by Powell in his remarkable career as public servant, but the philosophy and ideas that undergirded his work. Most readers at the end will conclude that the history of the United States might have proceeded differently had his profound insights into the nature of the American West been heeded. Stegner writes in a lucid, clear, frequently exciting prose style. Although his history is solid, his writing is somewhat more. For example, at one point Stegner writes of one person who was more than a little deluded about the nature of the West: "The yeasty schemes stirring in Adams' head must have generated gases to cloud his eyesight." Especially in context a brilliant sentence, and not of the quality one anticipates in a historical work, especially one that deals at length with questions of public policy. The volume also contains an Introduction by Stegner's mentor and teacher Bernard DeVoto, an essay that contains in a few pages the heart of DeVoto's own understanding of the West, and which alone would be worth the cost of the volume. Stegner does an excellent job of relating Powell's own insights and visions to those of others of the day. He contrasts Powell's philosophy with the desires and urges of the people who were rushing to obtain land in the West, and the politicians who were trying to lure them there. He points up similarities and differences in his way of looking at things, from those stoutly opposed to his views, and those in some degree sympathetic to him, like Charles King and the oddly omnipresent Henry Adams. From the earliest pages of the book to the very end, Stegner brings up Adams again and again, which is somewhat unexpected since Adams is not an essential participant in this story. I have only two complaints with the book, one stylistic and the other substantive. The book contains a few maps but no photographs, and this book would have profited greatly from a number of illustrations. He refers to many, many visual things: vistas, rivers, people, paintings of the West, photographs of the West, maps, Indians, and locales, and at least a few photographs or illustrations would have greatly enhanced the book. The second complaint is more serious. Stegner is completely unsympathetic to the attacks of Edward D. Cope on Othniel C. Marsh and, primarily by association, Powell. The Cope-Marsh controversy was, as Stegner quite rightly points out, the most destructive scientific controversy in United States history, and one that does absolutely no credit to either major participant. My complaint with Stegner's account is that he makes Cope sound more than a little psychotic, and his complaints more symptoms of mental illness and irrational hatred than anything generated by reasonable causes. Cope's hatred of Marsh was not rational, but neither was it baseless. Cope had indeed suffered grievously at the hands of Marsh, who had used his own considerable political power to prevent Cope from obtaining additional fossil samples. In this Powell was not completely innocent. I believe that anyone studying the Cope-Marsh controversy in greater detail will find Cope and not Marsh to be the more sympathetic figure, and certainly the more likable. The careers of both Cope and Marsh were destroyed by their controversy, but so also was that that of Powell greatly diminished. I can understand why Stegner is so unsympathetic to Cope, while at the same time believing that he overlooks the justness of many of Cope's complaints.
Rating:
Summary: Still a classic, though a little frayed
Review: This is a still a must-read for serious river rats, showing how our belief in the "big rock candy mountain" overruled the evidence before our eyes as we developed the West. This book was written in the early 1950s, and two signs of age were apparent. First, Stegner had not seen many of the river sections he describes, including the Grand Canyon of the Colorado and the Desolation-Grey Canyons section of the Green. The boom in commercial river running now makes many of us more expert than Stegner on that subject - kind of fun! Second, and less fun, the old boy has many subtle ways of downplaying the importance of women in the story. Small example: Stegner names Powell's brothers but only mentions the number of sisters, even though their roles in the story all quite small. These are nits born of his times. Still a fascinating tale.
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