The Dreamt Land
by Mark Arax · first published 2019
100% recommend
Why HN recommends it
Covers California agriculture and water in the Central Valley, tying farming, groundwater pumping and the state's water movement system to the desert landscape. Readers find it up-to-date and useful for newcomers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"A vivid, searching journey into California's complicated relationship to its water, from the Gold Rush to today : an epic story of the struggle to overcome the constraints of nature. Mark Arax is from a family of Central Valley farmers, a writer with deep ties to the land, who has watched as the battles over water have intensified even as the state lurches from drought to flood and back again. In The Dreamt Land he travels the state to explore the century-old water distribution system that is straining to keep up with California's relentless growth. This is a heartfelt, beautifully written bo
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…drought. You have bought into the propaganda of a Beverley Hills billionaire. If you are actually interested in the reality of this topic, i urge you to read Mark Arax's latest book: https://www.amazon.com/Dreamt-Land-Chasing-Across-California...
on “Fire on the Mountain: Rethinking Forest Management in the Sierra Nevada (2018) [pdf]” ↗Mark Arax, the author of that article has a longer book, A Dreamt Land, on the subject of California agriculture and water, (probably the article is an excerpt) that is a really good read too. A little more up-to-date than Cadillac Desert, and more focused on California…
on “Joan Didion has died” ↗Highly recommend reading The Dreamt Land by Mark Arax if you'd like to learn more about this. The plants should never have been planted. Decades of unregulated groundwater pumping and effectively stolen federal water is feeding what used to…
I'd also recommend The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California by Mark Arax.
on “Regulators OK largest dam demolition in history to restore salmon habitat” ↗I recommend folks here read "The Dreamt Land" by Mark Arax. I just started it so it might be a premature recommendation, but it has been doing a great job for me as a new California resident of explaining the interaction between business/agriculture…
on “Nation's Largest Reservoirs Are Drying Up, Threatening Life in the Southwest” ↗If this subject is terribly interesting to you, I recommend the book The Dreamt Land. https://www.amazon.com/Dreamt-Land-Chasing-Across-California...
on “Decision looms for controversial Poseidon desalination plant” ↗IIRC, The excellent book Dreamt Land says 2/3 of California's precipitation falls in the northern 1/3 of the state. But it's the southern part with the ideal climate for agriculture. Hence the largest water movement system in history.
on “First Hurricane to hit California in 84 years; ‘catastrophic’ flooding feared” ↗For a non-fiction look at the topic of water in California - and really the whole shaping of the state - I highly recommend "Dreamt Land".
on “California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years” ↗