Buku Water to the Angels - Karya Les Standiford
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Book 5

Water to the Angels

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by Les Standiford

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In 1907, Irish immigrant William Mulholland designed and began to build one of the greatest civil engineering feats in history: the aqueduct that carried water 233 miles from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Los Angelesâ€"allowing this small, resource-challenged desert city to grow into a modern global metropolis. Drawing on new research, Les Standiford vividly captures the larger-than-life engineer and the breathtaking scope of his six-year, $23 million project that would transform a region, a state, and a nation at the dawn of its greatest century. Mulholland, a penniless Dublin immigrant who made his way west as a stowaway on a passenger ship, personifies the American rags-to-riches tale, working from a position as a ditchdigger to become chief engineer of the Los Angeles Water Company. Confronted with a decade-long drought that threatened his adopted city's future, the self taught Mulholland found the answer in the rushing snow melt from the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains, nearly 250 miles away. He proposed to build an aqueduct that would outdo any such ever conceived, one that would carry an entire river from its source to Los Angeles, through mountains, over chasms, and across an alternately freezing and blistering terra incognita, because he believed it was the city's only hope. The project brought a simmering-to-this-day firestorm of protest from residents of California's Owens Valley where the waters would be taken, as well as an all-out onslaught from political opponents and vested interests in Los Angeles, who were fearful of losing their stranglehold on the city's yield. But after nine years of struggle, including the efforts of thousands of workmenâ€"many of whom lost their livesâ€"and the use of engineering techniques and strategies never previously employed, Mulholland turned the gates and loosed the waters that brought an unprecedented wave of development and prosperity to his city and the region. Though the landmark film is not only a book that provides insight into the seeds of significant ecological concerns of this day, it is also a stirring story of accomplishment against all odds, all the more captivating for being true. As Robert Towne, author of the screenplay for Chinatown suggests, the subject is timeless. I found the ubiquity of water in everyone's lives to be compelling. Everybody needs water. At a time when the importance of water is being recognized as never beforeâ€"considered by many experts to be the essential resource of the twenty-first centuryâ€" brings into focus the vigor of a fabled era, the might of a larger-than-life individual, and the scale of a priceless construction project, and sheds critical light on a past that offers insights for our future.
Details
  • Jumlah Halaman

    0

    Penerbit

    Harper Collins

  • Tanggal Terbit

    07 Oct, 2015

    Penulis
    Les Standiford
  • Bahasa

    Indonesia

    ISBN

    SCOOPG86646

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