Cracked: The Future of Dams in a Hot, Crazy World

by Steven Hawley

David James Duncan (Foreword)

The ugly truth about dams is about to be revealed. 

During the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the whole messy truth about the legacy of last century’s big dam building binge has come to light. What started out as an arguably good government project has drifted oceans away from that original virtuous intent. Governments plugged the nation’s rivers in a misguided attempt to turn them into revenue streams. Water control projects’ main legacy will be one of needless ecological destruction, fostering a host of unnecessary injustices.

            The estimated 800,000 dams in the world can’t be blamed for destroying the earth’s entire biological inheritance, but they play an outsized role in that destruction. Cracked: The Future of Dams in a Hot, Crazy World is a kind of speed date with the history of water control -- its dams, diversions and canals, and just as importantly, the politics and power that evolved with them. Examples from the American West reveal that the costs of building and maintaining a sprawling water storage and delivery complex in an arid world—growing increasingly arid under the ravages of climate chaos—is well beyond the benefits furnished. Success stories from Patagonia and the Blue Heart of Europe point to a possible future where rivers run free and the earth restores itself. 

• ISBN13: 9781938340772
• Publish Date: 15 June 2023
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Patagonia Books
• Format: Hardcover (US Trade)
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[Jeff Sexton]

Activist Polemic With Little Documentation - But The Pictures Are Stunning. Quite honestly, the description on this book as of the time I write this review roughly 10 days before publication (yes, meaning this is an advance reviewer copy with all that this entails) is quite misleading. The description makes it seem as though the reader is getting a well documented history of the history of water control and its current problems and potential solutions to those problems. Instead, this is an activist screed from the very beginning, with next to no documentation - just 7% of the text, when 20-30% is far more typical in my extensive experience.

Thus, as is very nearly always the case, one star was deducted for this lack of documentation. The second star is deducted because of the obvious slant and the strawman arguments so heavily used throughout the text. The third star is deducted for the inaccurate description provided by the publisher.

This is *a* history though, and from the activist, anti-dam perspective, a solid one in the mold of one preaching to the choir - as choirs never ask to see documentation, taking everything the preacher says on faith alone. Which is not science or journalism. ;)

And yet, the pictures provided throughout are truly stunning. Whoever took them did some truly excellent work in that space, and I can honestly recommend this book for the pictures alone. Which is why it doesn't sink any further in the rating.

Overall a dense and blatantly biased yet still somewhat interesting read, and absolutely get this for the pictures alone. (Meaning you need a print or tablet version of this book. :D). Recommended.