Water to the Angels

From the author of Last Train to Paradise, the story of William Mulholland's Los Angeles aqueduct, the largest public water project ever created-a tale of Gilded Age ambition, hubris, greed, and one determined man whose vision shaped the future. "e;A timely book. . . . It's a powerful and beautifully told story of hubris, ingenuity, and, ultimately, deepest tragedy."e; Erik LarsonIn 1907, Irish immigrant William Mulholland conceived and built one of the greatest civil engineering feats in history: the aqueduct that carried water 223 miles from the Sierra Nevada mountains to Los Angeles allowing this small, resource-challenged desert city to grow into a modern global metropolis. Drawing on new research, Les Standiford vividly captures the larger-then-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. At a time when the importance of water is being recognized as never before considered by many experts to be the essential resource of the twenty-first century Water to the Angels 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, shedding critical light on a past that offers insights for our future. Includes eight pages of photographs. "e;Hubris and gilded dreams are good subjects for Standiford, who has previously written about Henry Frick and Andrew Carnegie, among others; he artfully captures small moments while maintaining the historian's broader view. . . . Like Mulholland's aqueduct, the book covers a lot of ground while moving along in episodic but dramatic fashion."e; New York TimesBook Review"e;Fascinating. . . . Standiford, a Miami-based historian, is a masterful storyteller, and he expertly captures both the present and past in a state not his own."e; Christian Science Monitor