Cracked
The Future of Dams in a Hot, Chaotic World
by Steven Hawley
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Pub Date May 02 2023 | Archive Date May 01 2024
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Description
The ugly truth about dams is about to be revealed.
During the first two decades of the 21st 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.
A Note From the Publisher
* Please note, this galley has a placeholder cover (not the final).
Advance Praise
“Watercourses wild and free have in the last two centuries been dammed, blocked, chocked and choked in so many ways that the USA can seem a dam nation. Steven Hawley opens the gates to a view of this crime against nature, showing how many of these concrete erections are past their use-by date, and the calamities they continue to cause to fish, land, water, other wildlife, and Native rights.” — Carl Safina, author of Beyond Words and Becoming Wild
“Steven and Patagonia have created a masterpiece that will fire generations to do for many rivers what Muir’s long gaze and language are still doing for Yosemite’s fair sister, Hetch Hetchy, and her iconic river, the Tuolumne. We possess, en masse, the power to restore world wonders the dam-building frenzy has temporarily stolen and defiled. Let the return of wonders begin with the energies set free in this river- lovers’ bible.” — David James Duncan author of The River Why and Brothers K
"Provocative, well-written, and splendidly illustrated, Steven Hawley's Cracked is a ferocious critique of dammed-up rivers. It reveals the extraordinary and little understood costs of "clean, green" hydropower." — Blaine Harden, author of A River Lost: The Life and Death of the Columbia
“Steve Hawley has cracked and shattered the myth that dams have universally served us well. His informed outrage at the unnecessary loss of natural rivers is outdone only by his sense of hope for a better path. This book is a must-read for anyone who loves rivers and for anyone who recognizes the importance of water in the world of tomorrow.” — Tim Palmer, author of Endangered Rivers and the Conservation Movement
Marketing Plan
Summer 2023 fly shop and bookstore tour. Dates to come.
Summer 2023 fly shop and bookstore tour. Dates to come.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781938340772 |
| PRICE | $28.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 321 |
Available on NetGalley
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