Marc Reisner (September 14, 1948 - July 21, 2000) was an American environmentalist and writer best known for his book Cadillac Desert, a history of water management in the American West. He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and graduated from Earlham College in 1971. He then worked as a staff writer and director of communications for the Natural Resources Defense Council. In 1979 he received an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship, which enabled him to focus on research and writing for Cadillac Desert, which was first published in 1986. He went on to write additional books and helped develop a PBS documentary on water management. In 1997 he published a discussion paper for the American Farmland Trust on water policy and farmland protection. Reisner died of cancer in 2000 at his home in San Anselmo, California. His final book, A Dangerous Place, was completed before his death but did not appear in print until 2003.
Books
- Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water (1986, revised 1993). ISBN 0-14-017824-4
- Overtapped Oasis: Reform or Revolution for Western Water (with Sarah Bates) (1990). ISBN 0-933280-75-0
- Game Wars: The Undercover Pursuit of Wildlife Poachers (1992). ISBN 0-436-41053-2
- A Dangerous Place: California's Unsettling Fate (2003). ISBN 0-14-200383-2
