Complexity in a Ditch: Bringing Water to the Idaho Desert - Paperback
Pay over time for orders over $35.00 with
Offers & Perks
Earn 19 points with this purchase
Added to your rewards balance after checkout.
100 points welcome bonus
Create an account and start with extra points.
Water--or the lack of it--has profoundly shaped the settlement patterns, economic development, and political dynamics of the arid American West. On Idaho's Snake River Plain, the irrigation process has been particularly complex, influenced by local and national politics as well as geographic geography and technology. Throughout two decades, decisions surrounding water use shaped the state's settlement patterns, economic development, and political dynamics. Author Hugh T. Lovin researched and published insightful articles on the topic in a wide array of scholarly journals. These selected essays offer a thorough examination of the transformation and controversy related to the region's irrigation.
Encouraged by the Carey Act of 1894, settlers flocked to the Idaho desert. Bureau agents and speculators followed. Lovin explores their efforts to farm, promote, and irrigate, covering successes and failures of key players. He discusses related federal policies, the New West reclamation tragedy near Twin Falls, the King Hill project, the fight to divert Yellowstone water, and more. Idaho historian Adam Sowards' valuable introduction sets Lovin's work in context and concludes, "No one knows irrigation better than Hugh Lovin, and the essays included here are gems of historical research."
Hugh T. Lovin (1928-2014), was a fourth-generation Idahoan and Boise State University history professor from 1966 through 1993. He earned a master's degree in history at Washington State University, and a PhD at the University of Washington. He was the editor of Labor and the West, an anthology published by Sunflower University Press, and wrote for many different historical journals.
Sowards, Adam M.: -Professor Adam Sowards is the Director of the University of Idaho's Program in Pacific Northwest Studies. He is an environmental historian who focuses on North America, especially the West, and is affiliate faculty with American Indian Studies, Environmental Science, Water Resources and American Studies at the University of Idaho.
Contributor(s)
Author
Free shipping on orders over $75. Standard shipping takes 3-7 business days. Eligible items may be returned within 30 days of delivery. Conditions apply.