| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Mark Fiege. Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West. Foreword by William Cronon. (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books.) Seattle: University of Washington Press. 1999. Pp. xv, 323. $35.00.

This book begins with the observation that the relationship between nature and human society's alteration of nature is reciprocal: people change nature, and, in response, nature affects the way people live and work. This keen insight provides the starting point for Mark Fiege's investigation into the history of irrigated agriculture in Idaho. 1

While inspecting the Snake River valley, Fiege noticed that the complex system of canals, ditches, and conduits relied as much on the area's natural geography as it did on the imposition of technology and science upon the landscape. For example, what appeared to be a naturally occurring creek near the town of Buhl was in fact a part of the irrigation network. But this creek, though "a component of hydraulic technology," was not completely artificial (p. 5). Its path traced a "crease made in the land by geological forces" and as such was as much a part of the natural environment as the river whose diverted waters were carried by the creek to downstream farmers (p. 6). The convergence of nature and technology leads Fiege to think about the history of irrigation in a way that emphasizes nature's responsiveness to the alterations wrought by human society. . . .

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