"Water is one of mankind's greatest concerns, and few areas are more aware of it than Western America. From the time of the earliest settlers to the present, westerners have understood that to control the West's water means to control the West itself. This work is about the greatest conflict over water in the American West; more precisely, it abut an alleged peace treaty - the Colorado River Compact of 1922. But like most books about peace it is really an account of a war in which the life and death of cities and states are at stake. The Colorado River is the sole dependable water supply for an area of 244,000 square miles, including parts of seven states - Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, California - and Mexico. Yet it carries enough water for only a handful of cities, industries, and farms, condemning most of the West to remain a desert. This stark reality was at the heart of the movement for an interstate treaty among the seven basin states and the federal government and it remains at the heart of the disputes over water that still rock the West. Professor Hundley traces the movement for the compact, and the complex legal and political battles that spawned it and continue to influence the lives of westerners today. A major theme of the study is federalism: the attempt of the basin states to work out their destiny in concert with the government in Washington, an attempt dogged from the start by conflicting notions of sovereignty"--Unedited summary from book jacket.

"Colorado River Compact": p. 337-343.