Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West (SIGNED COPY)
by: Donald Worster

Hardcover. NY, Pantheon Books, 1st, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket, 402 pages. SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR on the title page. Worster presents a picture of a technological empire based on vast water projects, designed by engineers and controlled by a small managerial elite. This reality, he argues, considerably limited the West's fabled freedom, the claims of promoters, hack writers, and self-serving local historians notwithstanding . this is a major theoretical work, well-argued and generally well-written, a must for any bookshelf that seeks thoroughness in matters western. Chapter five "The Grapes of Wealth," is focused on irrigation in the Central Valley of California and the Central Valley Project. Donald Worster (born 1941) is a prize-winning American academic, one of the founders of, and leading figures in, the field of environmental history. Clean copy.