noted thattheScandinavian immigrantsinBal lardwere less likelyto favor thebungalow. Did the bungalow embody something distinctly American not shared by recent immigrants? We will have towait for some other study to answer such questions. Ore's book isa valuable addition toAmeri can cultural history. It isbased on imaginative andwide-ranging research, isclearlypresented, and is illustratedwith a largenumber of pho tographs drawn from contemporary assessor's records. J.M. Neil Boise, Idaho BIGDAMSOF THENEWDEAL ERA: A CONFLUENCEOF ENGINEERING AND POLITICS by David P.BillingtonandDonald C. Jackson University ofOklahoma Press, Norman, 2006. Illustrations, photographs, notes, bibliography, index. 416 pages. $36.95 cloth. Big Dams of the New Deal Era, by David P. Billington and Donald C. Jackson, is unique in itsapproach and geographic scope, because the authors examine the intersection ? "the confluence"?of politics and engineering that led to thebuilding ofmany ofAmerica's larg est dams (p. 4). Those dams include Hoover, Bonneville, Grand Coulee, Shasta, Friant, Fort Peck, and Garrison, although the authors also look at others. Geographically, the authors examine four important and different watersheds: the Columbia, Colorado, Missouri, and Sacra mento/San Joaquin.This allows them to com pare dam projects across regions and water sheds.Differences are not limited to physical landscapes, although those are critical. The Columbia River has an average annual flow of some 275,000 cubic feetper second, about ten times more than theColorado. Differences also include thepolitical climates ineach region and thedemands frombackers of navigation, irri gation, flood control, urban water supply,and hydroelectric power.Within each watershed, thesevaryingdemands led to conflictsbetween upstream and downstream states,theprincipal federal agencies, private and public interests, and states and the federal government. Chapters i and 2 setup thebook. In those chapters, the authors introduce readers to the agencies thatbuilt thebig dams: theU.S. Army Corps of Engineers and theBureau Reclama tion. They begin with theBureau inChapter 1.Congress established the Bureau in 1902 to undertake irrigationprojects in the West. The Corps dates back to the nation s founding and had long been in charge of navigation improvements. On the eve of theNew Deal, however, neither agency had much experience inconstructing largedams thatserved multiple purposes. In theearlychapters,Billington and Jackson also introduce readers to the history of dam design and construction. They examine the "Massive Tradition," represented by gravity dams, and the "Structural Tradition," repre sented by thin arch dams. Gravity dams rely on their mass to resist water pressure and thin arch dams rely on physics. Thin arch dams offer as much stability ? maybe more ? and need lessmaterial to build than gravitydams. Still, theCorps and theBureau usually chose gravity dams, because the public interpreted the bulkier appearance as meaning greater stabilityand, therefore, greater safety. At times, the authors present complex equations and engineering drawings thataverage readersmay finddifficult. Overall, however, theypresent the data in clear, simple, and interestingterms. In chapters 3 through 6, the authors focus on select dams built in each of themajor watersheds. They look at theargumentsbehind building the dams, the design issues, and the construction processes. How much time they spend on each depends on the project. While theyprovide some background on the economic and political origins of each dam, 332 OHQ vol. 108, no. 2 theyare strongest when discussing theorigins of projects on theColorado River and in the Central Valley of California. And they spend extra time on the engineering of theFort Peck Dam on the Missouri River in Montana. In September 1938,a largesectionof theFort Peck earthen dam slid out, killing eightwork ers.The Corps had nearlyfinishedhydraulically building up the dam. That is, theyhad been pumping amixture of earthandwater onto the dam. As thewater flowed away, the sediment remained. The slide influenced themethod used forotherMissouri River earthendams, so theauthors thoroughly examine the engineer ingdebates thatcame before and after it. From the outset, Billington and Jackson challenge the common public misperception that,since theBureau and theCorps built the big dams during theGreat Depression of the 1930s,Congress only authorized them to put people towork. The authors show thatpres sure for the big dams had begun before the Depression. The Depression did influenceeach project in importantways. The need to put people towork often rushed construction and ensured thatdesigns were not too innovative. All the dams adhered to...