CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Foreword by Sandra L. Postel

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART ONE

FLOODS AND DROUGHTS IN LIVING MEMORY

1 • From Drought to Deluge: “Normal” Climate in the West

2 • The 1861–1862 Floods: Lessons Lost

3 • The Great Droughts of the Twentieth Century

4 • Why Is Climate So Variable in the West?

PART TWO

A CLIMATE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WEST

5 • Reading the Past: The Earth’s History Books

6 • From Ice to Fire: Into the Holocene

7 • The “Long Drought” of the Mid-Holocene

8 • Ice Returns: The Neoglaciation

9 • The Great “Medieval Drought”

10 • The Little Ice Age: Megafloods and Climate Swings

11 • Why Climate Changes: Cycles and Oscillations

PART THREE

A GROWING WATER CRISIS

12 • The Hydraulic Era: Salmon and Dams

13 • Future Climate Change and the American West

14 • What the Past Tells Us about Tomorrow

Bibliography

Index