Jack L. August, Jr.

While this book served my immediate purposes, which was to provide some insight into the great legal battle between the states of Arizona and Colorado over access to the waters of the Colorado River, the impact of which was to secure the water needed to make the urbanization of Arizona a success while at the same time opening up a new era of federal resource management, I really can't say this is that great of a text. For one, the author's attitude towards Mark Wilmer, the trial lawyer who saved the day for Phoenix, is so gushing that it inevitably provokes a certain skepticism. Two, the bigger problem that August dances around in his account of this water war is to face head on the matter that the political leadership of Arizona were often their own worst enemies in terms of winning allies; when August describes them as "states-rights Democrats" a more accurate phrase might be "dogs in the manger." At the very least I know that I now feel motivated to try and hunt down a sharper history of Arizona politics.… (meer)