Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century »

Michael Hiltzik is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author who has covered business, technology, and public policy for the Los Angeles Times for twenty years. In that time he has served as a financial and political writer, an investigative reporter, and as a foreign correspondent in Africa and Russia. He currently serves as the Times business columnist. His other books include The Plot Against Social Security (2005), Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age (1999), and A Death in Kenya (1995). Mr.

In this definitive account, Los Angeles Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Michael Hiltzik shares the epic story of Hoover Dam's construction and its tremendous—-and continuing—-impact on the United States.

The Washington Post - Kevin Starr

…detailed and vividly written…destined to be the standard history for decades to come…Hiltzik is an equal-opportunity debunker when it comes to digging into sources and finding the true story behind the dam's construction.

Introduction: September 30, 1935: Roosevelt Comes to the River

PART ONE The Sinful River 1

1 The Journey of Death 3

2 Born of the Desert 19

3 Rockwood's Gamble 35

4 The Lord's Dam Site 52

PART TWO The Road to Black Canyon 71

5 Hoover Steps In 73

6 Battlegrounds 89

7 Hurry-Up Crowe 123

8 The Silver Spike 144

9 The Big Six 159

10 Ragtown 179

11 Rush Job 196

12 The Wobblies' Last Stand 217

13 Ely's Kingdom 251

PART THREE The Arch 271

14 The Jumbos 273

15 Turning Points 290

16 The Rising 307

17 The Pour 323

18 Reckonings 347

19 The Crest 366

20 Legacies 385

Notes 409

Bibliography 466

Acknowledgments 475

Index 481