Home Back My Cart : 0 item(s)

 

THE SAN JOAQUIN: A RIVER BETRAYED

THE SAN JOAQUIN: A RIVER BETRAYED. cover image
Price: Call for price
Product ID : WD-26

Purchase

Call for price

Description

The story of the San Joaquin California's heartland river its people, its places, its past. In the maiden embrace of Thousand Island Lake, Garnet Lake and Shadow Lake sparkling gems of the John Muir Trail country the collected droplets of what will become the San Joaquin River gather. At these first resting spots, the waters stand clear and cold, but this pristine distinction is not to last. Wending its way down towering mountains, through deep canyons and between undulating foothills, the river passes some of the most beautiful country in America, yet by the time it reaches the San Joaquin Delta, nearly 400 miles and 10,000 vertical feet later, it has become little more than a public sewer, a fouled, controlled drain for agricultural and municipal wastewater. While nearly all of America's major rivers have been compromised, few have been so misused as the San Joaquin. In its comparatively brief history it has been dammed, diverted and depleted beyond comprehension. Some see the San Joaquin as a river betrayed. This book is not an academic history; rather, it is the story of a real river its people, its places and its past based on the lives and letters of those who have known it firsthand. More than anything, this book seeks to identify the forces and figures who have shaped, altered and corrupted the course of a once mighty river. So come, step back in time and travel along; there's one of the old river steamers now. Hop onboard and journey up the river. You can reflect on the river's rich and colorful past and visit its backwaters and byways. You'll also have a chance to stop and examine those places where the water barons and power brokers left their mark, as well as the spots where government intervention went awry. And perhaps during the journey you'll gain a bit of insight about the hard choices to be faced if the wise use of this essential resource is to prevail.

Products You May Like

  • WHEN THE GREAT SPIRIT DIED- [LSI]: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CALIFORNIA INDIANS

    WHEN THE GREAT SPIRIT DIED: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CALIFORNIA INDIANS. cover image $19.95
    $11.97

    "This man has scalped more Indians than any other person living on this coast, and has his trophies to prove the fact." This was the headline of an article in the San Francisco Examiner in early 1899. The reporter had obtained an interview with one Jackson Farley, a pioneer rancher who had settled in Mendocino County in 1857. Was this merely the idle boast of an old man seeking notoriety? Not at all. Farley pointed out dozens of Indian scalps decorating the walls of his cabin. Too, the reporter duly noted the fact that Farley recited his tales while sitting in his "Indian hide-bottomed chair." A member of one of Farley’s 1859 Indian hunting forays testified that: "On the first night we found and surrounded a rancheria in which we found two wounded Indians and one old squaw, all of which we killed; on our return home we found another rancheria which we approached within fifteen feet before the Indians observed us; then they broke for the brush, and we pursued them and killed thirteen bucks and two squaws."

  • An Artist and a Writer Travel Highway 1 South

    An Artist and a Writer Travel Highway 1 South $26.95

    The best loved and most spectacular drive in California is documented in a beautifully illustrated artistic and literary journey. A fantastic drive comes to a stunning conclusion in An Artist and a Writer Travel Highway 1 South.

  • STORIES OF SERVICE: Valley Veterans Remember World War II

    STORIES OF SERVICE: Valley Veterans Remember World War II $24.95
    $14.97

    Stories of Service is a remarkable collection of stories by veterans and civilians of the San Joaquin Valley who lived and fought during World War II. Gathered primarily from author Janice Stevens? memoirs class for military veterans, these stirring recollections include riveting tales of combat, such as a sailor caught in the open on the docks when the first wave of Japanese warplanes bombed Pearl Harbor, to the harrowing dash across the sand during the Utah beach landings on D-Day. Other stories are poignant remembrances of pain and loss by those who remained on the home front, and depict the privation and sacrifice that characterized their lives. The authentic voices within speak with simple unvarnished honesty about fear, bravery, boredom, and love. Augmented by almost 100 period photos, their compelling stories represent a powerful and unfiltered look back into a time of terrible conflict, pain, courage, and patriotism.

  • California Fruits, Flakes & Nuts

    California Fruits Flakes Nuts Cover $14.95

    They call California the Granola State — a place where everyone is a fruit, a flake or a nut. They don’t get any fruitier, flakier or nuttier than the deviants, crackpots and losers profiled in California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts. A freewheeling catalog of misfits, eccentrics, creeps, criminals and failed dreamers, California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts profiles 48 bizarre personalities who exemplify the Golden State’s well-deserved reputation for nonconformity. Unlike the sanitized heroics taught in school, California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts tells history from the viewpoint of the losers: murderers, lunatics, eccentrics and disgraced, washed-up celebrities. Presenting a wealth of historical information that had long been swept away and forgotten, California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts is a uniquely entertaining look at the dark and disreputable corners of California history. In these pages, Gold Rush pioneers are revealed as murderous madmen; Hollywood celebrities are shown to be drug-addled sex maniacs; early hippies are just 1950s weirdos; and even seemingly ordinary Californians have a talent for freakish, crazy and criminal behavior. California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts profiles such stellar Californians as frontier lunatic Grizzly Adams (whose head was one massive wound after multiple bear attacks); I Love Lucy star William Frawley (a racist, misogy- nist, foul-mouthed drunk); skirt-wearing, skirt-chasing legendarily awful film director Ed Wood; proto-hippie and “Nature Boy” singer eden ahbez; rocket scientist, black magician and L. Ron Hubbard mentor Marvel Par- sons; and many more nutjobs, oddballs and dangerously violent freaks. The perfect book for anyone who likes feeling superior to losers, California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts is a side-splitting, salacious and shocking salute to the people who made California the strangest place on earth.

  • MURDER IN THE GARDEN

    MURDER IN THE GARDEN $16.95
    $10.17

    As countless thousands poured into the fertile San Joaquin Valley of California in the decades following the Civil War, some brought visions of man's darker side to this new Eden. Murder in the Garden is the absorbing examination of fifteen notorious crimes from the not-too-distant past of Fresno, California.

Call us: 800-345-4447

Full Website