Joseph E. Stevens
Auteur de 1863: The Rebirth of a Nation
A propos de l'auteur
Joseph E. Steven's first book, "Hoover Dam: An American Adventure," received the Western Writers of America's Spur Award, the John H. Dunning Prize of the American Historical Association, & the W. Turrentine Jackson Prize of the Western History Association. He is also the author of "America's afficher plus National Battlefield Parks." He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (Bowker Author Biography) afficher moins
Œuvres de Joseph E. Stevens
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- Œuvres
- 3
- Membres
- 228
- Popularité
- #98,697
- Évaluation
- 3.9
- Critiques
- 4
- ISBN
- 12
An important artifact of 20th century and civil engineering, the construction on the Colorado River of a large dam to generate electrical power was financed with public funds. The Hoover Dam, renamed Boulder Dam, reflects a public policy which favored government investment.
This project remedied the Depression of 1929 by hiring thousands of laborers, and by injecting public funds into an economy from which private funds had been withdrawn and concentrated into the hands of plutocrats. The story also serves as a colorful epic of the American Southwest distinguished by the fact that it is true, and not like so many others, pure legend.
The struggles of labor, the conflict between the feudal lords of local powers and the central federal government, the risks of new technology, and the unfolding of actual history (as riveting as fiction, but here documented by scholars), are captured by Joseph Stevens, an educated resident of Santa Fe.
Hoover Dam was the supreme engineering feat of its day -- 1931-1935. A large public infrastructure project built in the teeth of the Great Depression. As a story-teller, the author draws four main characters: The engineers and managers, the workers, the river and the dam itself as an artifact which arcs across the imagination of all who behold it.
All of the financial intertwinnings of private and public funding, and the tinges of racism and complex political friction between progressives and conservatives which have reemerged on steroids since the Financial Collapse of 2008, were played out in this precedent feat of 1930's engineering performed in the teeth of the Great Depression of 1929. The GOP caused the financial collapse of 1929 and 2008, and they did try to obstacle the "Hoover Dam" project.
No one reading the facts of this monument to public investment can claim that our nations prosperity was restored without the direct intervention of massive Government spending on large public works. This massive investment of public funds for infrastructure (electricity and water) paid off, and it would pay off today. Sadly, the GOP is obstructing such investments in spite of the historical record of efficacy. Their arguments against the investment of public funds were stated better in the 1930s, and they were wrong then, and they are wrong today.… (plus d'informations)