David Kennedy is the Donald J. Mclachlan Professor of History, Emeritus, and founding director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University. He is the author of several books on American history, including Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (1999), which won the Pulitzer Prize and the Francis Parkman Prize. He received the OAH Distinguished Service Award in 2007.
An account of the phenomenal demographic growth and economic dynamism of the post-WWII American West, emphasizing the enormous investment in water management and how the regional plumbing system is now threatened by a perfect storm of population growth, changing environmental standards and statutes, and climate change.