The Scopes Monkey Trial, the Sacco and Vanzetti case, "Brown v the Board of Education," and even subsequent televised high profile murder trials pale in comparison to "Arizona v California," argues author Jack August in "Dividing Western Waters," August's look at Arizona's Herculean legal and political battle for an equitable share of the Colorado River. To this day "Arizona"" v ""California" is still influential.
By the time Mark Wilmer settled in the Salt River Valley in the early 1930s, he realized that four basic commodities made possible civilization in the arid West: land, air,...