Reprint of the original, first published in 1864.

Water and land interrelate in surprising and ambiguous ways, and riparian zones, where land and water meet, have effects far outside their boundaries. Using the Malheur Basin in southeastern Oregon as a case study, this intriguing and nuanced book explores the ways people have envisioned boundaries between water and land, the ways they have altered these places, and the often unintended results. The Malheur Basin, once home to the largest cattle empires in the world, experienced unintended widespread environmental degradation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After establishment in 1908 of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge as a protected breeding ground for migratory birds, and its expansion in the 1930s and 1940s, the area experienced equally extreme intended modifications aimed at restoring riparian habitat. Refuge managers ditched wetlands, channelized rivers, applied Agent Orange and rotenone to waterways, killed beaver, and cut down willows. Where Land and Water Meet examines the reasoning behind and effects of these interventions, gleaning lessons from their successes and failures. Although remote and specific, the Malheur Basin has myriad ecological and political connections to much larger places. This detailed look at one tangled history of riparian restoration shows how—through appreciation of the complexity of environmental and social influences on land use, and through effective handling of conflict—people can learn to practice a style of pragmatic adaptive resource management that avoids rigid adherence to single agendas and fosters improved relationships with the land.

A fascinating mix of autobiographical episodes and extraordinary Egyptian theology, Burroughs's final novel is poignant and melancholic. Blending war films and pornography, and referencing Kafka and Mailer, The Western Lands confirms his status as one of America's greatest writers. The final novel of the trilogy containing Cities of the Red Night and The Place of Dead Roads, this is a profound meditation on morality, loneliness, life and death.

Tells how Mark Wilmer, an Arizona lawyer, fashioned the successful arguments that won the Supreme Court case securing Arizona's allottment of Colorado River water.

Western Water A to Z is the first ever field guide to Western water. Reinventing this twentieth-century genre for a twenty-first-century audience, Robert R. Crifasi answers questions about rivers, water projects, the culture of water, the ecosystems water projects have created or destroyed, and the reliance of cities, farms, and industries on this critical resource. Organized as a collection of terms, the book addresses the most salient water issues and provides helpful background information regarding their origins and implications. Photographs serve a vital role in the cultural dialogue on water and stand as an equal partner to the text. Each subject is covered in about one page and is accompanied by one or two striking images from famous photographers like Margaret Bourke-White, Carleton E. Watkins, Arthur Rothstein, William Henry Jackson, and Dorothea Lang as well as Crifasi’s own work. Water often finds itself at the center of our cultural discourse in art, cinema, and literature, which play essential roles in shaping our understanding and experience of Western water. Crifasi also engages personalities that are nearly synonymous with Western water—John Wesley Powell, Elwood Mead, and Floyd Dominy, among others—to show how their lives intertwined with and often influenced the course of water development across the region. Travelers, adventurers, students, and anyone interested in water will find Western Water A to Z a handy and entertaining reference guide.

The Scopes Monkey Trial, the Sacco and Vanzetti case, Brown v the Board of Education, and even subsequent televised high profile murder trials pale in comparison to Arizona v California, argues author Jack August in Dividing Western Waters, August’s look at Arizona’s Herculean legal and political battle for an equitable share of the Colorado River. To this day Arizona v California is still influential. By the time Mark Wilmer settled in the Salt River Valley in the early 1930s, he realized that four basic commodities made possible civilization in the arid West: land, air, sunshine, and water. For Arizona, the seminal water case, Arizona v California, the longest Supreme Court case in American history (1952–1963), constituted an important step in the construction of the Central Arizona Project (CAP), a plan crucial for the development of Arizona’s economic livelihood. The unique qualities of water framed Wilmer’s role in the history of the arid Southwest and defined his towering professional career. Wilmer’s analysis of the Supreme Court case caused him to change legal tactics and, in so doing, he changed the course of the history of the American West.