In Running Dry, historian Toby Jones explores the various ways that modern society's unquenchable thirst for carbon-based energy is endangering water, particularly in the Western United States where there has been a rapid push to extract newfound energy resources alongside the accelerating loss or pollution of critical water resources.

Explores the various ways that modern society's unquenchable thirst for carbon-based energy is endangering water. This concise book examines the history of the "energy-water nexus”, the ways in which oil and gas extraction poison and dry up water resources, the role of corporate "science” in deflecting attention away from the emerging crises, and the ways in which the rush to capture more energy is challenging America's democratic order.