Irrigated Eden
The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West
Published on 16. July 2015
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-0-295-99583-0 (ISBN)
Description
Irrigation came to the arid West in a wave of optimism about the power of water to make the desert bloom. Mark Fiege's fascinating and innovative study of irrigation in southern Idaho's Snake River valley describes a complex interplay of human and natural systems. Using vast quantities of labor, irrigators built dams, excavated canals, laid out farms, and brought millions of acres into cultivation. But at each step, nature rebounded and compromised the intended agricultural order. The result was a new and richly textured landscape made of layer upon layer of technology and intractable natural forces-one that engineers and farmers did not control with the precision they had anticipated. Irrigated Eden vividly portrays how human actions inadvertently helped to create a strange and sometimes baffling ecology.
Winner of the Idaho Library Association Book Award, 1999
Winner of the Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Award, Forest History Society, 1999-2000
Winner of the Idaho Library Association Book Award, 1999
Winner of the Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Award, Forest History Society, 1999-2000
Reviews / Votes
"Fiege suggests that, no matter how we try to alter the natural world, the unexpected consequences of our actions will always come back to haunt us. . . . He also offers new ways of thinking about the past and, possibly, new ways of thinking about how the future will unfold. The writing style is eloquent."(Choice) "For such a focused book, there is remarkable breath here. No one will go away from this book without having their view of irrigated landscapes enlarged and enriched."
(Washington State Magazine)
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Seattle
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
29 illus.,
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 156 mm
Weight
703 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-295-99583-0 (9780295995830)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Mark Fiege is a professor of history and Wallace Stegner Endowed Chair in Western Studies at Montana State University. He is the author of The Republic of Nature: An Environmental History of the United States (UW Press, 2013) and Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West (UW Press, 2000).
Content
Foreword by William Cronon
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Discovering the Irrigated Landscape
1) Genesis: Water, Earth, and Irrigation Systems
2) Habitat: The Irrigated Landscape and Its Biota
3) Dividing Water: Conflict, Cooperation, and Allocation on the Upper Snake River
4) Labor and Landscape: Irrigated Agriculture and Work
5) From Field to Market: Agricultural Production in the Irrigated Landscape
6) Industrial Eden: Myth, Metaphor, and the Irrigated Landscape
7) Conclusion: A World in the making
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Discovering the Irrigated Landscape
1) Genesis: Water, Earth, and Irrigation Systems
2) Habitat: The Irrigated Landscape and Its Biota
3) Dividing Water: Conflict, Cooperation, and Allocation on the Upper Snake River
4) Labor and Landscape: Irrigated Agriculture and Work
5) From Field to Market: Agricultural Production in the Irrigated Landscape
6) Industrial Eden: Myth, Metaphor, and the Irrigated Landscape
7) Conclusion: A World in the making
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index