Cadillac Desert, Revised and Updated Edition: The American West and Its Disappearing Water

Name: Cadillac Desert, Revised and Updated Edition: The American West and Its Disappearing Water
SKU: 165288
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4.6 | 1,370 ratings

Price: 23.36

Last update: 01-29-2025

About this item

The 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 city's 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 exposé and a dramatic, intriguing history of the creation of Eden - an Eden that may be only a mirage.

James T. Dakin

Western US water history and issues -- a classic must-read

Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2016

This 1986 tour de force examines water and dams in the mostly arid Western US. Topics addressed in detail include, but are not limited to, the Army Corp of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, California Aqueduct, California Water Wars, Central Arizona Project, Colorado River, Grand Coulee Dam, Glen Canyon Dam, Hoover Dam, John Wesley Powell, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Mono Lake, Ogallala Aquifer, Owens Valley, Teton Dam, and William Mulholland.

Underlying the encyclopedic scope of “Cadillac Desert” are two basic themes.

First, the settlers lured to the arid West by the railroads and the US Federal Government in the 19th century needed cheap water to support agriculture on their 160 acre parcels of land, and also for their growing cities such as Los Angeles. Cheap hydroelectric power was often a secondary need, essential to pumping water. This need was met by projects of the Bureau of Reclamation and the Corps of Engineers. The projects were generally promoted by local congressmen, who supported each other’s projects. In the long term this endeavor has been subsidized by US taxpayers since return revenues from the projects have generally fallen fall far short of plan.

Second, the projects and dams have been an escalating source of controversy. For the most part the projects have not been economically justifiable, especially the irrigation projects, and especially the more recent projects. Also, the dams have created lasting problems -- salination of irrigated soil; silt accumulation behind the dams; environmental devastation to streams, salmon fisheries, and migratory birds; an overstretched US Federal budget, etc. Cheap hydroelectric power has also enabled groundwater pumping which is depleting aquifers. The taxpayer subsidized benefits of cheap water have often gone to large corporate agriculture, not the small farmers for whom the water was intended. By the later part of the 20th century the public sentiment had largely turned away from building ever more dams, and indeed toward removing some of the existing ones.

The individual chapters of “Cadillac Desert” are often mesmerizing, instilling a sense of outrage in the civic and history minded reader. The chapter on the 1976 Teton Dam failure is a great example. If the leaders and promoters had thoughtfully considered the economics of the dam, or the geology of the site, the dam would never have been built in the first place. But built it was and fail it did. The spectacularly devastating failure is now used as a case study in engineering courses, providing an example of mistakes at all levels and by all of those involved.

While Reisner does seem long winded at times, it is worthwhile staying with “Cadillac Desert” to the end. On one hand, it provides many interrelated perspectives on water and the West. It also ends on a somewhat positive note as the many constituencies involved seem to be converging on a more rational approach to future water usage in the West.

DNA Doc

Who is here because of Paolo Bacigalupi?

Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2024

After reading The Water Knife, I wanted more. A lot more! And boy did I get it! Mr. Bacigaluoi did not exaggerate about how good this book is. It's a thesis on water in the West. Many people have summarized the book very well, so I won't try to duplicate their work.

What I will say is this: Occasionally, you get a glimpse into a brilliant brain, and find it hard to believe that someone could dig so deeply. Most people in the US have never researched an issue for more than 30 minutes. Personally, had the privilege of spending three years looking at an esoteric protein for my PhD. I emerged as the reigning monarch of that stupid protein for all of a month before I was dethroned. So I thought I understood "deep." I was woefully unprepared for this level of DEEP!!!

Holy wow!!! To say this work is brilliant is underselling it in the extreme. This is a literal life's work of love and passion, not repeatble by any living human today. It's special. VERY special. It's well-written, well-edited (which is a really nice surprise in today's market), and holds the attention easily. I couldn't put it down. There's something very attractive about getting a glimpse into such a beautiful mind.

Thank you Mr. Bacigaluoi for directing me to this book. I won't forget the favor if you ever need anything!

Brad Allen

A somewhat too complete story on water in the West

Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2012

Cadillac Desert is available in a plethora of the National Park book stores and I have intended to read it for about the last twelve years. Finally, a trip to California pushed me over the edge as I tried to figure out the water rights signs along I-5. It is an excellent book that very completely spells out the water situation in the major western states from Colorado west. The stories, though, start to get a bit too long and familiar.

Although pretty familiar with this region of the US, I still needed a map most of the time. The locations, distances, and relationship of places is both important and punctuates the story. It is shocking the almost diabolic regression of the Bureau of Reclamation and the Corps of Engineers in the three decades following the mid 1950's. To think that we came to believe that "any water which flows into the ocean is waste" and that it made sense to divert the Columbia River to California is almost inconceivable. The actual projects built in the 60's and 70's are equally unbelievable. Yet they are all there.

In the end, I did not finish the final 20% of the book because I pretty much understood the story and couldn't take another story of corrupt western senators, water projects that don't pay off, subsidized farms, and ill-conceived dams. Prior to reading Cadillac Desert I could not understand why we might tear down a dam. Now I can't believe we haven't torn down more.

Cadillac Desert will inform you, shock you, and get you a whole lot closer to a clear liquid we take for granted every day.

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