River of Life, Channel of Death tells the story
o of the long struggle to bring navigation to Lewiston, Idaho, and hydropower to a region;
o of the influence of powerful congressional representatives and booster organizations;
o of a clash of cultures, first between Indians and whites and later between environmentalists and developers;
o and of the role of the federal government in Western settlement.
While the dams transformed Lewiston into the farthermost inland seaport in the western United States, they continue to be a subject of controversy in the national debate over the fate of Northwest salmon. In a preface written for this timely new edition, Petersen comments on issues, including dam breaching, that have arisen since his book was first published.
"Historian Keith Petersen has done a superb job of chronicling the achievement of the building of the lower Snake River dams and the natural resource devastation they wrought." -Former Idaho Governor Cecil D. Andrus
"Petersen writes history the way it should be written-free of academic cant and jargon . . . Evocative, eminently readable, River of Life is an important book about one of the West's most timely topics." -Alvin Josephy, Jr., author of The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the West
"Keith Petersen has written a fascinating book of epic sweep. Prodigiously researched, informative, commendably balanced, and exceptionally readable, it is both outstanding history and an eloquent appeal." - LeRoy Ashby, author of Fighting the Odds: The Life of Senator Frank Church