The Wired Northwest: The History of Electric Power, 1870s-1970s
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.93 (574 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0700618732 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 472 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-08-31 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
federal agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. But hydropower is king. A broad historical synthesis chronicling the region's first century of electrification, Paul Hirt's new study reveals how the region's citizens struggled to build a power system that was technologically efficient, financially profitable, and socially and environmentally responsible. Northwest and British Columbia. Bureau of Reclamation built many of the large dams in the region, a significant portion of the power supply is publicly owned, initiating contentious debates over how that power should best serve the citizens of the region. Focusing on the dynamics of problem-solving, governance, and the tense relationship between profit-seeking and the public interest, Hirt's narrative takes in a wide range of players-not only on the consumer side, where electricity transformed mills, mines, households, commercial districts, urban transit, factories, and farms, but also power companies operating at the local and regional level, and investment companies that financed and in some cases parasitized the operators. Northwest and British Columbia. Hirt dissects these ongoing battles, evaluating the successes and failures of regional efforts to craft an efficient yet socially just power system. Both engaging and balanced in its treatment of all the actors on this expansive stage, The Wired Northwest helps us bett
"An important contribution to understanding not only electrical power, but the ways in which its infrastructure creates new regional spaces and politics"—Pacific Historical Review
Hirt is an associate professor of history at Arizona State University, where he is also a Senior Sustainability Scholar at the Global Institute of Sustainability. He is author of A Conspiracy of Optimism: Management of the National Forests since World War Two and editor of Terra Pacifica: People and Place in Northwest America and Western Canada. Paul W.
Interesting and Thorough I like this book. But it's a bit long. I feel like this book could have been improved by losing 50 pages.If you read the description of this book, you realize that the author is telling a long and carefully researched story. There are times when the author goes ahead and tells that story. But there are times when the author gets bogged down in tertiary details.In particular, we get excessive back stories for a lot of secondary characters (like assistant banke