A River Lost: The Life and Death of the Columbia
Author: Blaine Harden
List Price: $25.00
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ISBN: 0393039366
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company (June, 1996)
Sales Rank: 373,247
Average Customer Rating: 4 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 4 out of 5
An eye opener.
I grew up in the Tri-Cities and spent the first 19 years of my life living just blocks away from the Columbia River and there was a lot of information told in this book that I never knew. Harden does a wonderful job of relating the history of the Columbia River and the effects that the many dams built on the river had on the land, the people, the nation, and the economy. I thoroughly enjoyed his story and felt he handled well the many issues important to preservationists, politicians, and farmers.I recommend this to anyone who lives in the state of Washington and is interested in man's permanent effects on this land.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Wonderful writing. Interesting points of view.
Once in a great while a book comes along that is so beautifully written, with stories so well told, that the subject matter seems secondary to the writer's ability to sustain interest. For me, with little interest in the northwest (I've been there twice), this was such a book. It is from Harden's exceptional skill as a writer and narrator of stories that the Columbia River suddenly became of great interest as I turned his pages. "A River Lost" tells the story and history of the Columbia River and the environmental, economic and aesthetic impact of daming that river in the first half of the last century. Especially interesting are the stories and points of view of those who work and live on its shores, the fate of the native indians who have lived in the region for hundreds of years and the differences in culture between the Starbucks yuppies east of the Cascades and the blue collar workers so dependant on the water and its billions in federally subsidized benefits to the west.
Highly praised in reviews by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, the Village Voice, The Seattle Times and Publishers Weekly, it is a great read for the information, for the writing, for a piece of American history.
Rating: 5 out of 5
So much good information
A full and complete modern history of the Columbia River. At times sad, always intriging. Harden has done an excellent job of combining interviews with research that makes an excellent read.Highly recommmended.
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