Customer Reviews

The Whole Dam Story: The Drowning and Rising of a River City in the West

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This is a local's account of the relocation of the American Falls residents to accomodate the construction of the American Falls Dam. While it includes some quaint (honestly enjoyable) commentary from area old-timers, it includes largely paraphrased hoopla from Idaho Power's commissioned work (which casts Idaho Power as the Savior of Western American Civilization) and reads very much like century-old Bureau of Reclamation literature promising every man paradise for the price of a shovel and a hard day's work. Phrases like "this torturous desert needed only water to be transformed into green gold!" ignore the realities of impoverished generations of farm families, salinated soils, polluted aquifers, and endangered anandromous fish. Citations are sporadic, absent, or downright false. It serves as a genuine good example of how powerful the pioneer-settlement myth has been in the region, and is a fun read if you're from the area (it's like being told a story by a favorite great-aunt), but has no substantial environmental, historical, or academic potential (if you're looking for research materials). Books more suitable for research:The Snake River: Window To The West Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West We Sagebrush Folks