alt Hacker NewsRegarding the dams, I recommend the book "Cadillac Desert" to anyone even remotely curious about the background and scale of water projects in the US. It's not boring despite the what the subject matter might suggest.
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Yes, it's an outstanding book, well worth reading:
Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, by Marc Reisner, Penguin Books, 1986, 1993.
A recent perspective on this excellent book by Ryan Cooper is also very good. He says that journalists in the 1970s and 80s were infected with Reaganite ideology and made some mistakes. Worth reading:
https://prospect.org/2025/12/12/cadillac-desert-reconsidered...
Excellent book, seconded.
Regarding buttons, or rather 'buttony' (which used to mean the craft of making buttons), the UK has many regions that have historical claims to being the former button capital of the world. First it was Dorset, thanks to the sheep, then Yorkshire stole that business, then the Black Country (Birmingham) brought the full weight of the Industrial Revolution to the product.
This American/German story is just one Johnny-come-lately part of the epic story that is button making, albeit without a 'Cadillac Desert' grade book to put the story together for you.
That's about the US West. It might as well be a different country, with respect to water. East of, say, Omaha, the concern is more getting rid of water than collecting it.