Indian Reserved Water Rights: The Winters Doctrine in Its Social and Legal Context, 1880s-1930s.

John Shurts. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000. [phone]; http://www.ou.edu/oupress. 352 pp. $39.95 Clothbound.

Indian Reserved Water Rights: The Winters Doctrine in its Social and Legal Context, 1880s-1930s provides a historical study of the 1980 Winters case and the early use of the reserved water doctrine. The Winters decision has played an important and controversial role in discussions of Western water rights. The author explains how the litigation and its outcome fit well within the existing legal context and ongoing efforts at water development in the Milk River Valley in Montana. He also examines the life of the Winters doctrine through a study of water rights litigation on the Uintah Reservation in Utah.

John Shurts is an adjunct professor at the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon.