In the quarter-century since his first book, Killing the Hidden Waters, was published in 1977, Charles Bowden has become one of the premier writers on the American environment, rousing a generation of readers to both the wonder and the tragedy of humanity's relationship with the land.

Revisiting his earliest work with a new introduction, "What I Learned Watching the Wells Go Down," Bowden looks back at his first effort to awaken people to the costs and limits of using natural resources through a simple and obvious example-water. He drives home the point that years of droughts, rationing, and even water wars have done nothing to slake the insatiable consumption of water in the American West. Even more timely now than in 1977, Killing the Hidden Waters remains, in Edward Abbey's words, "the best all-around summary I've read yet, anywhere, of how our greed-driven, ever-expanding urban-industrial empire is consuming, wasting, poisoning, and destroying not only the resource basis of its own existence, but also the vital, sustaining basis of life everywhere."

Bowden's classic study of "mining" the waters of the southwestern United States presents a historical, ethnological, and technological analysis in clean, compelling prose.

About the Author

Charles Bowden (1945-2014) lived and wrote in Tucson, Arizona. His books include Down by the River: Drugs, Money, Murder, and Family, Blues for Cannibals: Notes from Underground, Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America, and Desierto: Memories of the Future.

Reviews
"This slender book brims with wisdom and scholarship." Harold Scarlett, Houston Post "Charles Bowden's Killing the Hidden Waters is the best all-around summary I've read yet, anywhere, of how our greed-driven, ever-expanding urbanindustrial empire is consuming, wasting, poisoning and destroying not only the resource basis of its own existence but also the vital, sustaining basis of all life everywhere. This one little book tells the whole story. In my opinion, Charles Bowden is the best social critic and environmental journalist now working in the Amcrican southwest, a sharp and engaging writer who never lets his cool disgust at our collective stupidity erode his fundamental sympathy for thc actual living, breathing, still hopeful human beings who inhabit this besieged land. I salute him, and I wish him a million readers." Edward Abbey, author of Beyond the Wall and other books



Book Information
ISBN 9780292743069
Author Charles Bowden
Format Paperback
Page Count 206
Imprint University of Texas Press
Publisher University of Texas Press
Weight(grams) 454g