A River Lost
The Life and Death of the Columbia
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
"Superbly reported and written with clarity, insight, and great skill." —Washington Post Book World
After two decades, Washington Post journalist Blaine Harden returned to his small-town birthplace in the Pacific Northwest to follow the rise and fall of the West’s most thoroughly conquered river. To explore the Columbia River and befriend those who collaborated in its destruction, he traveled on a monstrous freight barge sailing west from Idaho to the Grand Coulee Dam, the site of the river’s harnessing for the sake of jobs, electricity, and irrigation. A River Lost is a searing personal narrative of rediscovery joined with a narrative of exploitation: of Native Americans, of endangered salmon, of nuclear waste, and of a once-wild river. Updated throughout, this edition features a new foreword and afterword.
Customer Reviews
A River Lost
I found this book to be a fascinating work, by Blaine Harden, and came upon it quite by accident after reading another book of his, called Escape from Camp 14. My son goes to university in Forest Grove, just outside of Portland, and I have driven over, along and beside the Colombia River, and never had the slightest inkling of all of the history, problems, politics and power that revolves around this life-giving river. Harden got down and dirty to write this book, talking and then documenting in perfect detail his chats with barge drivers, power plant employees, farmers, politicians, indigenous people, activists and anyone else who has a stake in this river that finds itself clogged up with no less than 16 dams along it. I do not usually read books twice, but this is one that I would, just for all of it's fascinating facts and stories that deal with this great river. The book poses as many questions as it provides answers, but its a highly recommended read, as far as I am concerned!