Hoover Dam: An American Adventure

by Joseph E. Stevens

Book Overview

In the spring of 1931, in a rugged desert canyon on the Arizona-Nevada border, an army of workmen began one of the most difficult and daring building projects ever undertaken--the construction of Hoover Dam. Through the worst years of the Great Depression as many as five thousand laborers toiled twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to erect the huge structure that would harness the Colorado River and transform the American West.

Construction...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0806122838
• ISBN13: 9780806122830
• Release Date: September 1990
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Length: 340 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Wonderful

This book will bring you in the middle of the desert and will make you live the adventure of one great engineer and great people who in the middle of the depression era will build the one most complex civil project ever attempted. You will assist to the birth of the city in the middle of nowhere, you will feel the dangers of the builders working in precarious conditions hanged on canyon walls , and you will follow the technology advancements needed to create something that was never attempted. A real masterpiece.

A wonderful book!

What a wonderful book. As a civil engineer, if I had been born 50 years sooner, I probably would have gone in dam-building, but by the time I came along, the great dam-building era in the US was over. On a recent trip to Las Vegas, my wife and I visted Hoover Dam three times, we were both so fascinated with this monumental structure. So I bought "Hoover Dam - An American Adventure" by Joseph E. Stevens. The author does a great job of describing the technical details without getting too technical for laymen, and he also covers the human details and the political background of the huge project. One thing that really made the book so enjoyable was the liberal use of photographs, and unlike many books where the photographs are all in the middle of the book, the photographs are located throughout the book in the appropriate chapters. This book made me proud to be an American, with the roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-the-job-done attitude that typified the early dam and bridge builders. If you have the slightest interest in major engineering feats, read the book, it's a good one.

A son's perspective

I was a young boy who lived in Boulder City for five years when my father helped build the dam. This is an excellently written - maybe one of the best I have ever read - and very accurate account of the construction, the people who did it, and life at the time. I stop and reminisce every time I go through Boulder City and drive over the dam. I loved my Dad and am very proud of his participation there. This book took me back in a very instructive and entertaining manner. It did the entire project proud. I won't hesitate one second to recommend this book to anyone who appreciates excellence in writing, or who loves America and its history. For this was a truly great undertaking, excellently and excitingly performed. And by people who, in my opinion, are prime examples of the so called "Greatest Generation". Detailed accounts of the construction of the dam are available, and are also excellent. But that is not the focus of this book.

A truly wonderful book

I belive that this is one of the best books on the subject of Hoover Dam. It doesn't just give the basics, it goes farther than that into the details of construction and personal accounts. This book will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish. This is truly a wonderful book.

A superlative work about a superlative structure

Author Joseph Stevens has conceived the perfect blend of technical detail, historical information, inspiration, intriguing anecdote, and literary entertainment in this very engaging story of the construction of one of the world's most spectacular engineering achievements: Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. You wouldn't think that a book about a dam in the desert would be that interesting, and yet this book holds one's attention from start to finish, with its story of how men and machines labored in the harshest of natural environments to build a structure that is still the definitive archetype of a dam. The book serves as both a reference and enjoyable reading material, and has something for everyone, from engineer to student to adventurer.