Cadillac Desert: The American West And IT's Disappearing Water: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition

I read this because it was mentioned in The Water Knife. Found it excellent and I learned a lot about American history. Highly recommended.

M.A.S.T agri student scheme brought me to California in Year 2 around 1991. Good to read now from you book,my stay then & apt today. Well presentedUK farmer

A very interesting history of water mismanagement in the States.

Brilliant factual account of the development of the American mid-West and the various players and forces at play. Well worth a re-read.

A fascinating insight, written in fine style

Geat book

This book is easily one of the best books I've ever read (several thousand), fiction or non fiction. Shocking, remarkable, detailed, surprising, humorous (very very beautifully added humour), insightful, and again, shocking. The historical insight into the US history alone is easily worth it (I'm UK), then the geography, then the shocking politics (nothing changes, but you can see from whence it came). The science! The history of irrigation across the planet (for eg, I always thought the Aswan High Dam was a good thing, now I know) Brilliantly written. A remarkable book. Ridiculously good book.

Reisner's account of the American West's water wars is massively well researched and dramatically written. He explores the financial, political, and social forces demanding that a watered West be somehow engineered. The water was procured for those who could command it or pay for it, and of course there were losers all over the West. The book captures a whole era in all it's glorious unsustainability, and it was written before the age of great dams was clearly done. The only daunting thing for a non-engineering-literate reader like myself is Reisner's constant reference to figures and statistics, which ram his points home with numbers slightly beyond my comprehension.