Feature: Colorado River
Region: Four Corners
Topics: C - O - T

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Water, Aridity and the Growth of the American West
Introduction

Earth has been variously called the planet of water and the planet of life, the connection between the two attributes being by no means casual.

Without water, there simply can be no life. Water flows in the veins and roots of all living organisms, as precious to them as the air they breathe and the food they eat. It is the lifeblood of their collective body.

Water has been critical to the making of human history. It has shaped institutions, destroyed cities, set limits to expansion, brought feast and famine, carried goods to market, washed away sickness, divided nations, inspired the worship and beseeching of gods, given philosophers a metaphor for existence, and disposed of garbage. To write history without putting any water in it is to leave out a large part of the story. Human experience has not been so dry as that.

Worster, Donald. Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity and the Growth of the American West. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985, 19-61.