For nearly a century, the Indians on the Wind River
Reservation in Wyoming have been battling their white farmer
neighbors over the rights to the Wind River. What You See in Clear
Water tells the story of this epic struggle, shedding light on the
ongoing conflict over water rights in the American West, one of the
most divisive and essential issues in America today.
While lawyers argued this landmark case all the way to the U.S.
Supreme Court, Geoffrey O’Gara walked the banks of the river with
the farmers, ranchers, biologists, and tribal elders who knew it
intimately. Reading his account, we come to know the impoverished
Shoshone and Arapaho tribes living on the Wind River Reservation,
who believe that by treaty they control the water within the
reservation. We also meet the farmers who have struggled for
decades to scratch a living from the arid soil, and who want to
divert the river water to irrigate their lands. O’Gara’s empathetic
portrayal of life in the West today, the historical texture he
brings to the land and its inhabitants, and the common humanity he
finds between hostile neighbors on opposite sides of the river make
What You See in Clear Water an unusually rich and rewarding
book.
關於作者:
A journalist and the author of A Long Road Home: Journeys
through America''s Present in Search of America''s Past, Geoffrey
O''Gara lives in Lander, Wyoming.
From the Trade Paperback edition.