Water and American Government: The Reclamation Bureau, National Water Policy, and the West, 1902-1935

by Donald J. Pisani

Donald Pisani's history of perhaps the boldest economic and social program ever undertaken in the United States--to reclaim and cultivate vast areas of previously unusable land across the country―shows in fascinating detail how ambitious government programs fall prey to the power of local interest groups and the federal system of governance itself. What began as the underwriting of a variety of projects to create family farms and farming communities had become by the 1930s a massive public works and regional development program, with an emphasis on the urban as much as on the rural West.

390 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Donald J. Pisani was educated at the University of California, Berkeley (B.A. 1964, M. A. 1968) and the University of California, Davis (Ph.D., 1975). Pisani taught in the history department at Texas A&M from 1977 to 1990. In the latter years, he had the good fortune to be appointed Merrick Professor of Western American History at the University of Oklahoma. At OU he taught courses in the United States survey, American Environmental History, and the History of the American West until his retirement in 1990.