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Sign up todayCadillac Desert, Revised and Updated Edition
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Learn moreThe story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruptions and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the cityโs growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants, the Bureau of Reclamation and the US Army Corps of Engineers, in the competition to transform the West.
Based on more than a decade of research, Cadillac Desert is a stunning exposรฉ and a dramatic, intriguing history of the creation of Edenโan Eden that may be only a mirage.
Marc Reisner (1948โ2000) authored three books: Cadillac Desert, Game Wars, and A Dangerous Place.
Lawrie Mott is an environmental scientist working in Californiaโs Bay Area.
Francis J Spieler is an actor and literary agent in New York.
Kate Udall is a stage, television, and film actress living in New Yorkโs Hudson Valley.
Reviews
โThe definitive work on the Westโs water crisis.โ
โA revealing, absorbing, often amusing and alarming report on where billions of [taxpayerโs] dollars have goneโand where a lot more are goingโฆ[Reisner] has put the story together in trenchant form.โ
โCadillac Desert is timely and of national importance. Hurry up and read this book.โ
โMasterfulโฆAmong the most influential environmental books published by an American since Silent Spring.โ
โEssential background reading for anyone who cares about the drought ravaging the West and the regionโs prospects for changing course before it is too late.โ
โBeautifully written and meticulously researched.โ
โ[This] timely and important book should be required reading for all citizens.โ
โCadillac Desert describes serious, perhaps fatal threats to the miraculous desert civilization of the WestโฆTake[s] effective aim at the vested interests that perpetuate unsound water resource development.โ
โWhen archaelogists from another planet sift through the bleached bones of our civilization, they may conclude that our temples were dams, says Reisner in this angry, exhaustive and gracefully written account of Americaโs quest to turn the inhospitable, irredeemably dry West into a Garden of EdenโฆNot the first book on the subject, but one of the best.โ
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