In this new, enlarged edition, John Opie updates his groundbreaking work on the environmental history of the Ogallala aquifer and plains farming. He addresses the impact of the 1996 Farm Bill (Federal Agricultural Improvement and Reform Act) and looks at the recent movement of industrial hog farming onto the plains. Opie also develops his argument for the plains as a “moral geography,” a view involving the recognition by society that it has an obligation to balance the responsibility for conserving natural resources with that for keeping a regional people—the family farmers—in operation.

John Opie is Distinguished Professor of History (emeritus) at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and the author of The Law of the Land: Two Hundred Years of American Farmland Policy (Nebraska 1994). He is currently living on the Indiana Dunes of Lake Michigan.

"Opie's well-written book updates his earlier version . . . that treats an extremely serious impending environmental problem with far-reaching implications. . . . This new edition discusses the recent proliferation of hog farms in this area, which place an additional burden on the aquifer. Opie . . . provides a history of the region, describes the current state of affairs, and helps put this growing problem into perspective. It should be in all undergraduate libraries. Undergraduates, graduates, and faculty in disciplines ranging form American history and geography to agriculture and hydrology."—Choice

“Opie’s answers, marvelously multi-faceted and unbiased . . . could serve elsewhere as a sane, scholarly model for addressing local enviro-crises.”—Booklist

“The coverage is thorough, balanced, thoughtful and certainly thought-provoking. John Opie writes well and clearly has the expertise and professional respect to deal on a knowledgeable basis with the Ogallala and its relationship to agriculture, people, politics and economics. . . . A ‘must read.’”—Journal of Sustainable Agriculture