Empowering the West

"This study effectively and shrewdly compares politically and environmentally diverse western cities as Seattle and Los Angeles."—Choice

"Western historians should find Brigham's analysis of the importance of electrical politics useful."—Western Historical Quarterly

"Overall, this book significantly extends our understanding of electrification. . . . Brigham expands the story, bringing the state back in, probing the roles played by politicians and pressure groups, and reminding us that debates regarding governmental roles were central to the process of electrification in the 1920s."—American Historical Review

"The need for strong, historically reasoned analysis of [deregulation of the electrical utility industry] issue is sorely needed, and Empowering the West is a good start that will serve historians and legislators well."—Agricultural History

"Brigham has rendered an important service indicating the widespread support for government's playing a major role in seeking electrical modernization through a public power generated in dams on the Tennessee and Colorado rivers."—Pacific Historical Review

"For a short, concise analysis of the politics of electricity in the 1920s, Brigham does a good job of telling us his story and why it matters to historians."—Journal of Arizona History

"This book makes a significant contribution to the literature on technology and politics in the twentieth-century United States. Brigham's argument about the importance of the political construction of technology is valuable."—Carl Abbot, author of The Metropolitan Frontier: Cities in the Modern American West

"This is an important book that will change the way environmental historians and western historians regard the role of electrical power in the development of the West."—Hal K. Rothman, editor of Environmental History