Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles

by Les Standiford

Book Overview

The author of Last Train to Paradise tells the story of the largest public water project ever created--William Mulholland's Los Angeles aqueduct--a story of Gilded Age ambition, hubris, greed, and one determined man who's vision shaped the future and continues to impact us today.

In 1907, Irish immigrant William Mulholland conceived and built one of the greatest civil engineering feats in history: the aqueduct that carried water 223 miles...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0062251422
• ISBN13: 9780062251428
• Release Date: March 2015
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Engaging writing, but an uncritical examination of a flawed man's legacy.

Standiford spins a yarn that is engaging and keeps the reader turning pages, and if one is looking for a breathless fan letter to Mulholland, this is it. While acknowledging Mulholland's greatest failure right off the bat (a dam failure that resulted in the deaths of more than 400 people), the author spends considerably more ink polishing Mulholland's legacy. Of course, that legacy includes the desertification of vast tracts of land, the creation of one of California's largest sources of air pollution, and a presidential decree that Los Angeles faucets are more entitled to Owens Valley water than is the Owens Valley, but these issues appear to pale - from the author's perspective - in comparison to Mulholland's civil engineering feat. Containing little to challenge the reader, less to embarrass the Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District, and next to nothing to offend Mulholland or his heirs, 'Water To The Angels' comes across as a public relations piece. To paraphrase the "Chief" himself, 'There it is, take it - but with a grain of salt.'