Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity & The Growth of The American West by Donald Worster (review)

86 Western American Literature Lavender’s words saunter. He is an easy writer with a command of the language and a charm of narration that is at once readable and authoritative. A fine historian and a thorough researcher, one can only envy him his research —several trips down the Canyon. Each chapter deals with, in chronological order, a pioneer river runner. Lavender has a knack for delineating character and river runners are char­ acters to begin with, from the steely Geòrgie White to the foolish Stanton and the generous Stone. Lavender gets you involved with the crazy single-minded people who were determined, if they couldn’t beat the river, to join it. Perhaps that was the key: once they’d done it, they had a choice : leave the river, stop being a damned fool and die of boredom ; or keep going for it again and again. That most of these people did it again speaks both to their character and the challenge of the river. Straight history this book purports to be, but there is a great deal more in it, such as the character of a wild river and how it called those who listened to the sound of a rapid roaring in the night. There weren’t many who responded to that call, but those who did tell us something about listening to the wild places. Few of them were articulate, and many would not have had the objectivity to put what they did in context with others, with the spirit of exploration. Lavender does. The superb text is enhanced by a center section of well-reproduced photo­ graphs that put faces with names and adds another dimension of understand­ ing, as does the good bibliography. It’s a handsomely designed book with visual appeal that compliments the verbal appeal of the writing. ANN H. ZWINGER Colorado Springs, Colorado Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity & The Growth of The American West. By Donald Worster. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985. 402 pages, $24.95.) This is a major study, one that should be read and considered by every student of western life and letters. Donald Worster boldly challenges the Turner hypothesis, among other cherished notions, and presents instead the picture of a technological empire based on vast water projects, designed by engineers and controlled by a small managerial elite. This reality, he argues, considerably limited the West’s fabled freedom, the claims of promoters, hack writers, and self-serving local historians notwithstanding. As the author sums up matters in his introduction: . . . the best place to begin that reexamination of the West is by sauntering along one of its irrigation ditches. In it are important, neglected clues to the meaning of freedom and autonomy, of demo­ cratic self-determination and openness, in the historical as opposed to the mythical West. One might choose, for example, the FriantKern Canal coming down from the Sierra foothills to the desert Reviews 87 lands around Bakersfield in the Great Central Valley of California. . . . Engineers report that it carries, at maximum, 5000 cubic feet of water per second. In that method of precise calculation is hinted the determination on the part of engineers, farmers, and other modern Westerners to wrest every possible return from the canal and its flow. The American West literally lives today by that determina­ tion. Though its importance has seldom been well understood, more than any other single element, it has been the shaping force in the region’shistory. Hooked? You should be, for this is a major theoretical work, well-argued and generally well-written, a must for any bookshelf that seeks thoroughness in matters western. Water unlocked arid land, but it may have locked in many people at the same time. Read Worster and decide for yourself. GERALD HASLAM Sonoma State University Theodore Roosevelt: Wilderness Writings. Edited and with introduction by Paul Schullery. (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books, 1986. 292 pages, $5.95 paper.) In this volume of the Peregrine Smith Literature of the American Wilder­ ness series, Paul Schullery has divided selections from Roosevelt’s writing into three categories: wilderness adventures, wilderness preservation, and natural history. Roosevelt the adventurer is romantic and ebullient. Adventure is a young...