Title: Rivers of empire : water, aridity, and the growth of the American West /
Authors: Worster, Donald, 1941-
Publisher: Pantheon Books,
Year: 1985
Subjects: Hydrology West (U.S.); Water-supply West (U.S.) History.; Water resources development West (U.S.) History; West (U.S.) History.; West (U.S.) Economic conditions.
Abstract: When Henry David Thoreau went for his daily walk, he would consult his instincts on which direction to follow. More often than not his inner compass pointed west or southwest. "The future lies that way to me," he explained, "and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side." In his own imaginative way, Thoreau was imitating the countless young pioneers, prospectors, and entrepreneurs who were zealously following Horace Greeley's famous advice to "go west." Yet while the epic chapter in American history opened by these adventurous men and women is filled with stories of frontier hardship, we rarely think of one of their greatest problems--the lack of water resources. And the same difficulty that made life so troublesome for early settlers remains one of the most pressing concerns in the western states of the late-twentieth century.^