Running Out - by Lucas Bessire

About the Book

"This book--the first ethnography of water conservation on the Great Plains--provides an account of High Plains aquifer decline through an exploration of the different ways in which heartland residents inhabit and understand the imminent depletion of groundwater. This literary ethnography offers a vividly sketched look into the lives and stories of this community, based on interviews with members of the community such as fellow farmers and state regulators, woven together with historical data, journalistic documentation, and Bessire's personal reflections of his family's lived experiences. (Five generations of the author's family have lived in the region as farmers and ranchers.)"--

Book Synopsis

Finalist for the National Book Award
An intimate reckoning with aquifer depletion in America's heartland

The Ogallala aquifer has nourished life on the American Great Plains for millennia. But less than a century of unsustainable irrigation farming has taxed much of the aquifer beyond repair. The imminent depletion of the Ogallala and other aquifers around the world is a defining planetary crisis of our times. Running Out offers a uniquely personal account of aquifer depletion and the deeper layers through which it gains meaning and force.

Anthropologist Lucas Bessire journeyed back to western Kansas, where five generations of his family lived as irrigation farmers and ranchers, to try to make sense of this vital resource and its loss. His search for water across the drying High Plains brings the reader face to face with the stark realities of industrial agriculture, eroding democratic norms, and surreal interpretations of a looming disaster. Yet the destination is far from predictable, as the book seeks to move beyond the words and genres through which destruction is often known. Instead, this journey into the morass of eradication offers a series of unexpected discoveries about what it means to inherit the troubled legacies of the past and how we can take responsibility for a more inclusive, sustainable future.

An urgent and unsettling meditation on environmental change, Running Out is a revelatory account of family, complicity, loss, and what it means to find your way back home.

Review Quotes

"Creative and extremely readable."---Julia Sizek, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"

Anthropologist Bessire (Behold the Black Caiman) combines ethnography and memoir in this deeply personal look at the depletion of the Ogallala aquifer. . . . A devastating portrait of how shortsighted decisions lead to devastating losses.

"-- "Publishers Weekly"

"[Running Out] bursts with passages that linger after reading. . . . haunting."---Christopher Flavelle, New York Times

"[Running Out] should be required reading for every environmental scientist."---David Dent, International Journal of Environmental Studies

"A moving, melancholy, environment-focused memoir."-- "Kirkus Reviews, starred review"

"A profound and eloquent meditation on how and why societies behave in seemingly irrational ways in the face of dwindling resources, impoverished environments, and attenuated social relationships."---Paul Sutter, Kansas History

"A short beauty of a book."---M.J. Andersen, Boston Globe

"Eminently readable. . . .The sense of loss that necessarily pervades Running Out is balanced by Bessire's lyrical prose, whose consistently crisp beauty serves as a welcome respite."---Ed Meek, The Arts Fuse

"Finalist for the National Book Award"

"Finalist for the Outstanding Western Book Award, Center for the Study of the American West"

"Highly recommended . . . Bessire's achievement in Running Out lies in his ability to open to the reader the water-consciousness of the people of the region. . . . Reading [Running Out] is time well spent."---Michael J. Smith, Nebraska History

"Kansas Notable Book of the Year"

"Lucas Bessire's poignant critique of dramatic groundwater decline in southwest Kansas and resistance to addressing it offers perspective on our failure to confront climate change. . . . This tale on the ebbing of the Ogallala Aquifer is a valuable addition to the literature of aquifer depletion, compelling for its insider's perspective and probing of contradictory human decisions that discount the future for immediate reward."---Dennis Dimick, Cleveland Review of Books

"Running Out is a book for our times - it should have an impact on policy, and become a classic."---John Miles, National Parks Traveler

"To try to get a grip on the cultural forces behind the [aquifer] depletion, [Bessire] began interviewing stakeholders in the vicinity of his family's property and wrote this very personal account, which includes both analysis of complicity and elegiac passages about his homeland's history and our dry future. . . . Stirring."---Flora Taylor, American Scientist

"Winner of the Bonney MacDonald Book Award, Center for the Study of the American West"

"Winner of the George Perkins Marsh Prize, American Society for Environmental History"

"Winner of the Victor Turner Prize, Society for Humanistic Anthropology"

About the Author

Lucas Bessire is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma and the author of Behold the Black Caiman: A Chronicle of Ayoreo Life.