The Wild River and the Great Dam: The Construction of Hoover Dam and the Vanishing Colorado River
by Simon Boughton
Middle School, High School    Ottaviano/Little, Brown    272 pp.
3/24    9780316380744    $19.99
e-book ed.  9780316380959    $12.99

In the early part of the twentieth century, the arid climate and desert landscape of the American Southwest limited development. The Colorado River, which passes through seven states (Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and California) was notoriously unpredictable: occasionally changing course, frequently flooding, and always bringing mud and silt. Building Hoover Dam, then, required persistence, fortitude, and resources, but, in turn, it provided electricity, irrigation, recreation, and—during the height of the Great Depression—jobs. Weaving compelling facts and human stories into a cohesive narrative, Boughton explores the dam’s political, economic, social, and environmental impacts on the region. He traces the need for a system of dams to control and regulate water; the engineering feats and specific labor skills that would be required to build the great dam at such a breakneck pace; and how the experience shaped the lives of those who built it. The final chapter and epilogue discuss how overreliance coupled with drought has imperiled the Colorado River, threatening several of its reservoirs with “dead pool,” the inability of water to flow downstream. The book includes numerous well-chosen black-and-white photographs, maps, diagrams, and primary source quotes throughout the text, while a timeline, additional maps, source notes, a bibliography, and an index (unseen) are appended.

From the January/February 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.