Anyone who cares about climate change and local politics, water, farming, and the state of the planet should read this book. I picked this up after driving across Kansas twice this summer; I was hoping to learn more about a way of life this is pretty foreign to me, but one that I had glimpsed from the highway driving 70 miles an hour: feedlots, rolling grass hills, pronghorn, irrigation. Bessire’s beautiful and personal story of a farming generation confronting (and avoiding) the depletion of the Oglala aquifer describes a whole world of people like you and me faced with the end of a way of life. In applying his anthropologist’s training to the place he grew up, he clarifies the issues, suggests some solutions, and concludes that we are all complicit in the depredations that began with Native American and bison genocide and may end with desertification of the Plains. But being complicit also means we can be part of the solution. His descriptions of southwest Kansas reveal a beauty that might not be obvious to most of us, but it is one that compels deep love for the place. I wish this book had never ended and I hope it wins awards.