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Summary: Water woes...
Review: I first read this book during graduate school, in a class which covered many subjects in the natural resource management field as well as environmental-economic conflict. At the time, I knew very little regarding the West and its constant conflict regarding water usage and water rights. The book proved to be an excellent primer on the state of affairs regarding the history and present-day usage of water in the American southwest. It gives a remarkably thorough history as well as a very intimate portrayal of its author and his relationship to the geography about which he writes. Other books, as well, complement this one (e.g. "A River No More" -Friedkin). But, none really do so as gracefully as this. Two years after I finished this book, I travelled extensively throughout the West and visited (or, passed-through) many of the locations Reisner discusses in the book. Such an experience only reinforced the significance of the subject-matter and enabled me to appreciate the material even more. This book, most definitely, changed my understanding of the West and its water.
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Summary: The History of Water is the History of the West
Review: The history of water is the underground history of the American West. How humans corralled the water of our great rivers and turned western deserts into the worlds largest cities and most productive farmland, is a fundamental aspect of America's history that we take for granted today, but will be studied with much interest in a thousands years. Future historians will use our dams as a window in understanding our long lost civilization.The history of dams, and how we justified them, could be a case study on the American culture and civilization for better or for worse. If all this sounds a little preposterous, then you haven't read Cadillac Desert. Reisner writes a highly detailed (and a little too dense for my taste) tome about the history of water management in the American West. It definately won't make Oprah's Book Club, but you will come to understand why the West (and hence, America) looks the way it does. Reisner tells a great story with flare and leaves no politician unscathed. His accusations are acidic, but his passion about the loss of our rivers is compelling. There is so much in this book that you can't record in a single review. Pick it up, you'll enjoy it.
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Summary: Devastating
Review: The work of a lifetime, Reisner's 500 page expose on the Western Water Machine will change the way any fist-time reader views 1)water 2) the federal government, and 3) the American West. Reisner's book is of a rare breed: meticulously researched, written with craft and humor and a human touch, and altogether damning mjust by telling the facts. In essence, and for a longer paraphrase look below, Reisner demonstrates that Los Angeles, California farmers, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Army Corps of Engineers and others worked togther to bend reality in favor of growth and living space. At some level this made sense. Hoover Dam, Reisner writes, helped to win WWII through its desperately needed energy production. However, at some point what was once needed became an imperitive for its own sake. Dams for the sake of building beautiful dams. Water projects for political legacy. Expensive water projects for farmers growing surplus crops. And then America gradually became aware that this Cadillac desert - an artificial oasis where the land once was dry - has come at a staggering environmental and recreational cost. It's a book that open the reader's eyes and understand a bit more about how U.S.A. works, especially in the arid West.
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Summary: An essential book for understanding modern American life
Review: The late Marc Reisner's brilliant and epic history of the struggles over water in the American West is an epic tale, and it is replete with heroes, villains, and victims. Unfortunately, most of the heroes appear early in the story, with mainly villains onstage at the end. Reisner begins his book with a recounting of the exploration and study of the West by several pioneers, but especially by John Wesley Powell, who understood the essential and unavoidable problems of the West earlier and better than anyone. Powell understood that the West was arid, most of it receiving far less water than needed to support either agriculture or livestock. His visionary and yet profoundly practical suggestions were largely rejected by the United States, setting the stage for much of the overdevelopment and exploitation in the twentieth century. From Powell, Reisner carries his narrative through such vivid personalities and events as William Mulholland, who pioneered water works to provide Los Angeles with water; Michael Strauss, the head of the Bureau of Reclamation for FDR, during which time the bureau built literally hundreds of dams; and the infamous Floyd Dominy, who manages to be both charismatic and scary at the same time, like a James Bond villain. He also takes the reader through some of the more spectacular water projects in US history, such as the building of the Hoover Dam and the Grand Coulee Dam, in addition to scores of massive water projects for various states in the US. He also devotes a great deal of space to the struggles between the Bureau of Reclamation and the US Army Corps of Engineers, and the resulting economic disaster that resulted. Reisner shows in excruciating detail how America has stretched its use of water in the West to the breaking point. For many in the West, water has been the key to an expanding economy and population, to the point where most of the water states are completely dependent on maintaining or even expanding their current water supply. But, as Reisner shows and Powell anticipated, there are inescapable limits to how much water can be provided to the West. Moreover, much of the water use is resulting in ecological disaster. It isn't just that some of the dams are dangerous (such as the Teton Dam, which ruptured and broke some years ago, and which is not too different from other dams currently in use), or that many of the dams are destined to silt up (in fact, most dams, as Reisner points out, are built with a specific lifespan in mind, which means that thousands of American dams will at some point need replacing), or hundred of wildlife habitats have been destroyed. Most of the dams have led to irrigation farming, which has throughout history led to the destruction of soil, like in Iraq, where nearly all the arable soil has been destroyed through irrigation. This is a sobering, frightening book, and one would hope that it would help lead to a renewed effort to bring Western water policy in line with the facts that John Wesley Powell outlined over a hundred years ago. Eventually, we will have to face these facts. Hopefully we will do so before catastrophe forces it upon us.
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Summary: Cadillac Desert is the story of water, politics and the west
Review: Cadillac Desert is an up close, raw and personal look at the politics, money, and power that went behind the story of water and the West. Marc Reisner spent years meticuously researching the history of water development in the West and writes of this story in great brilliance. In an era where the environment was given little consideration, men like Floyd Dominy, Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, could spend billions in tax payers dollars to literally move rivers and transform the desert landscape irrevocably. The West's insatiable appetite for water nearly caused the Grand Canyon to be dammed up in only relatively recent times. The era dam building may be coming to close in todays world of environmental impact statements and governmental regulations but the fight for water in the west continues
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Summary: Rewarding Reading
Review: This reader highly recommends this work to show the complexity involved in answering the question, "How much does a glass of water cost in the American Southwest "? The author wrote a well-researched book in an attempt to show the factors involved in answering that question. The author portrays a complex web of jurisdictions on the state local and federal levels that are involved in various projects. Every policy has its winners and losers. The book contains a little history of the Southwest, some personal interviews, many stories of the pork barrel politics involved to make sure the rest of the country buys into these irrigation and dam projects. This book will be an eye-opener for most Easterners in this country where battling over water rights is generally not on the local political agenda. A very rewarding book.
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Summary: terrific - and terrifically scary - history
Review: I picked up Marc Reisner's books after moving to CA recently from what I now realize is blissfully non-seismic and adequately-watered New England... This is a great history of man getting the (temporary) best of nature and whistling past the dam. The chapter on Bureau of Reclamation chief Floyd Dominy is worth the price alone: he is the type of headstrong, puritanical warrior (no exaggeration there) that American has produced in droves, yet he is virtually unknown now. The character profiles of John Wesley Powell and others are equally as good. I only wish that other historians had the sense of humor and irony that Reisner employs so well.
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Summary: A Classic of Western History
Review: 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.
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Summary: The best book on Water politics
Review: 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.
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Summary: Required Reading for California 101
Review: 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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