TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 829 Thirstfor Growth: Water Agencies as Hidden Government in California. By Robert Gottlieb and Margaret FitzSimmons. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991. Pp. xvii + 286; maps, notes, index. $35.00. Thirst for Growth is a luminescent addition to the rapidly growing literature on the history of water policy and management. Focusing on the recent history of six regional water agencies in Southern California, the book extends the boundaries of analysis of other studies on the conundrum of western water history. This monograph, written by two scholars with backgrounds in urban planning, is not good history in many respects. The historical context provided for their treatment of more recent trends and issues is linear, shallow, and not rigorously documented. Nevertheless, Robert Gottlieb’s sevenyear tenure (1980—87) on the board of directors of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California provided a unique vantage point from which to view and think about the contents of this book. His role as “participant-observer,” coupled with both authors’ re search in water-agency documents, judicious use of oral history interviews, and razor-sbarp insights, make this volume a paradigm of historical policy analysis. The book fills a void in our understanding of this region by focusing on agencies that manage, distribute, and market water acquired from the massive public works projects built in the 20th century. These pivotal institutions, that once pursued growthoriented programs relatively free from public scrutiny, found the former policy consensus shattered by challenges that exposed the weaknesses and inflexibility of established goals and practices. Public interest groups espoused new agendas, and the water managers became embroiled in issues such as groundwater contamination, by-products of water treatment, reallocations and transfers ofexisting supplies, the dilemmas of water pricing, and the frustrating quest to foster greater efficiencies. Public works historians should note that the book points out that the preeminent issues facing water agencies are managerial, not technological; that constructive planning is required to transcend former assumptions and practices. Clearly, those interested in the last quarter of the 20th century will profit from this trenchant example of bow old growth agendas are pressing against compelling limits. Contaminated water, vanishing wetlands, exceeded wastewater treat ment capacities, hazardous waste sites, exhausted solid waste landfills, and transportation gridlock all offer opportunities for historians to buttress tbe foresight of planners and managers with hindsight. Readers should be aware that this book is a polemic as well as a history. The authors grind axes and gore oxen to set the stage for highly sensible reforms and recommendations presented in the con cluding chapter. If read carefully, however, Thirst for Growth should 830 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE excite the interest of historians and open doors of inquiry into the neglected subject of public works management. Michael C. Robinson Dr. Robinson serves as the historian for the Mississippi River Commission/Lower Mississippi Valley Division, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg, Mississippi. He has published widely in the fields of public works and environmental history. Zionism, and Technocracy: The Engineering ofJewish Settlement in Palestine, 1870-1918. By Derek J. Penslar. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. Pp. xiii + 210; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $25.00. To redesign a nation after decades of colonial domination is hard enough. To create a nation that has not existed for two millennia except in the hearts and minds of descendants spread over the globe is a daunting challenge indeed. Dreams and ideals have to grapple with intractable realities. Limited occupational directions and prefer ences have to diversify in order to include every skill demanded of a modern nation-state. For those Jewish people determined to reclaim their homeland, the major occupational gap was that of farming. Since they were usually prevented from owning land and had emerged from centuries in ghettos, they had no significant peasant tradition. This impediment to nation building was recognized early by Zionist leaders. I had heard of kibbutzim, the type of communal settlements where earnings are shared and all property is held in common. On my first visit to Israel in 1991,1 was given the address ofdistant relatives living in Nahalal in the Galilee and learned of Nahalal’s seventy...