Beginning in 1849, Alfred Doten recorded his life in minute detail for more than 54 years. His revealing daily accounts of the West's lusty mining frontier included tales of lynching, vigilante justice, shootings in the street, grand opera and theatre, stock manipulations, seances, musical soirees, and general "jollifications." Clark selected and edited the most valuable portions of Doten's massive diaries. He said he knew of no other account, fact or fiction, that so graphically presented the tragic course of a single representative life through the violent transformations brought about by the California Gold Rush and the Nevada Silver Boom.

Nevada’s Newlands Project, completed in 1915, was the first federally subsidized water reclamation scheme in the U.S. Water Politics in Northern Nevada examines its construction and its many unintended consequences, including deterioration of water quality, destruction of vital wetlands, interruption of ecosystems, and pollution of waterways and ground water. The project also resulted in decades of litigation involving water allocation and the abatement of environmental, social, and economic problems. This book traces the long course of negotiation between competing users that resulted in the signing of the Truckee River Operating Agreement in 2008. It illustrates the challenges of sharing a scarce resource to meet diverse needs and of preserving the resource and the environment for future generations.

In northwestern Nevada, the waters of the Truckee, Carson, and Walker river systems are fought over by competing interests: agriculture, industry, Native Americans and newer residents, and environmentalists. Much of the conflict was caused by the Newlands Project, completed in 1915, the earliest federal water reclamation scheme. Diverting these waters destroyed vital wetlands, polluted groundwater, nearly annihilated the cui-ui and the Lahontan cutthroat trout, and threatened the existence of Pyramid Lake.

Water Politics in Northern Nevada examines the Newlands Project, its unintended consequences, and decades of litigation over the abatement of these problems and fair allocation of water. Negotiations and federal legislation brought about the Truckee River Operating Agreement in 2008. This revised edition brings the reader up to date on the implementation of the agreement, including ongoing efforts to preserve and enhance Pyramid Lake. The second edition now also includes a discussion of the Walker River basin, following a major project undertaken to address concerns about the health and viability of Walker Lake. The approaches taken to save these two desert treasures, Pyramid Lake and Walker Lake, are offered as models for resolving similar water-resource conflicts in the West.

Leah J. Wilds’s study is crucial reading for students and scholars of water politics and environmental issues, not just in Nevada but throughout the western United States.

The Westside Slugger is the powerful story of civil rights in Las Vegas and Nevada through the eyes and experience of Joe Neal, a history-making state lawmaker in Nevada. Neal rose from humble beginnings in Mound, Louisiana, during the Great Depression to become the first African American to serve in the Nevada State Senate.

Filled with an intense desire for education, he joined the United States Air Force and later graduated from Southern University—studying political science and the law at a time of great upheaval in the racial status quo. As part of a group of courageous men, Neal joined a Department of Justice effort to register the first black voters in Madison Parish.

When Neal moved to southern Nevada in 1963 he found the Silver State to be every bit as discriminatory as his former Louisiana home. As Neal climbed through the political ranks, he used his position in the state senate to speak on behalf of the powerless for more than thirty years. He took on an array of powerful opponents ranging from the Clark County sheriff to the governor of the state, as well as Nevada’s political kingmakers and casino titans. He didn’t always succeed—he lost two runs for governor—but he never stopped fighting. His successes included improved rights for convicted felons and greater services for public education, mental health, and the state’s libraries. He also played an integral role in improving hotel fire safety in the wake of the deadly MGM Grand fire and preserving the pristine waters of Lake Tahoe, which brought him national attention.

Neal lived a life that personified what is right, just, and fair. Pushing through racial and civil rights hurdles and becoming a lifelong advocate for social justice, his dedication and determination are powerful reminders to always fight the good fight and never stop swinging.
 

Just beyond Las Vegas’s neon and fantasy live thousands of homeless people, most of them men. To the millions of visitors who come to Las Vegas each year to enjoy its gambling and entertainment, the city’s homeless people are largely invisible, segregated from tourist areas because it’s “good business.” Now, through candid discussions with homeless men, analysis of news reports, and years of fieldwork, Kurt Borchard reveals the lives and desperation of men without shelter in Las Vegas.

Borchard’s account offers a graphic, disturbing, and profoundly moving picture of life on Las Vegas’s streets, depicting the strategies that homeless men employ in order to survive, from the search for a safe place to sleep at night to the challenges of finding food, maintaining personal hygiene, and finding an acceptable place to rest during a long day on the street.

That such misery and desperation exist in the midst of Las Vegas’s hedonistic tourist economy and booming urban development is a cruel irony, according to the author, and it threatens the city’s future as a prime tourist destination. The book will be of interest to social workers, sociologists, anthropologists, politicians, and all those concerned about changing the misery on the street.