Available:*
Item Barcode | Collection | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
---|---|---|---|---|
33607001062408 | Adult Nonfiction | 333.91 HARDEN | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
After a two-decade absence, Washington Post journalist Blaine Harden returned to his small-town birthplace in the Pacific Northwest to follow the rise and fall of the West's most thoroughly conquered river.
Harden's hometown, Moses Lake, Washington, could not have existed without massive irrigation schemes. His father, a Depression migrant trained as a welder, helped build dams and later worked at the secret Hanford plutonium plant. Now he and his neighbors, once considered patriots, stand accused of killing the river.
As Blaine Harden traveled the Columbia-by barge, car, and sometimes on foot-his past seemed both foreign and familiar. A personal narrative of rediscovery joined a narrative of exploitation: of Native Americans, of endangered salmon, of nuclear waste, and of a once-wild river now tamed to puddled remains.
Part history, part memoir, part lament, "this is a brave and precise book," according to the New York Times Book Review. "It must not have been easy for Blaine Harden to find himself turning his journalistic weapons against his own heritage, but he has done the conscience of his homeland a great service."
Author Notes
Blaine Harden, an award-winning journalist, is a contributor to The Economist and a former foreign correspondent for the Washington Post. He lives in Seattle, Washington.
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Although shorter than the Mississippi, the Columbia River, on the border between Washington and Oregon, is many times more powerful. Its energy comes from its steepnessit falls twice as far as the Mississippi in half the distance, and is what so attracted government engineers interested in producing hydroelectric power. Numerous dams, including Grand Coulee, "larger than any structure ever built in world history," transformed the river into a huge, navigable lake making Lewiston, Idaho, an unlikely seaport. "The river was killed more than sixty years ago and was reborn as plumbing." Washington Post journalist Harden goes back to his boyhood home (Moses Lake, Wash.) and examines the changessociological, environmental, economic and aestheticthat the taming of this great river wrought. His wonderful account touches on the destruction of Native American cultures dependent on the river and its salmon, and on the near extinction of the salmon themselves. Also fairly portrayed are the people and industries currently dependent on both the managed river and massive government subsidies: the nuclear industry, commercial barge traffic and desert farmers irrigating with the river's water. Harden provides a sensitive and thoughtful examination of a complex situation. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
Washington Post reporter Harden returned to his childhood home of Moses Lake, Washington, to examine conditions of the Columbia River. He felt that most people who make a living from the river (e.g., irrigating farmers, barge workers, and dam employees) have come to depend on federal subsidies as a way of life while maintaining a staunch anti-government attitude. Harden traces the rapid decline of salmon stocks to years of arrogant engineering and selfish economic interests while presenting fascinating interviews with a variety of people whose lives are affected by the river. Much more focused on the human element in the battle for the Columbia than William Dietrich's recent Northwest Passage: The Great Columbia River (LJ 2/15/95), which centered on the natural history of the river, this is highly recommended for all regional, environmental, and subject collections.Tim J. Markus, Evergreen State Coll.. Lib., Olympia (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.