In Praise of Floods: The Untamed River and the Life It Brings (Yale Agrarian Studies Series)

James C. Scott reframes rivers as alive and dynamic, revealing the consequences of treating them as resources for our profit A New Yorker Best Book of the Year “Informative, enjoyable, and provocative. . . . Scott’s [prose] is dry, clear, and scalding with moral purpose.”―Becca Rothfeld, Washington Post Rivers, on a long view, are alive. They are born; they change; they shift their channels; they forge new routes to the sea; they move both gradually and violently; they can teem (usually) with life; they may die a quasi-natural death; they are frequently maimed and even murdered. It is the annual flood pulse―the brief time when the river occupies the floodplain―that gives a river its vitality, but it is human engineering that kills it, suppressing the flood pulse with dams, irrigation, siltation, dikes, and levees. In demonstrating these threats to the riverine world, award-winning author James C. Scott examines the life history of a particular river, the Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy) of Burma, the heartland and superhighway of Burman culture. Scott opens our understanding of rivers to encompass their entirety―tributaries, wetlands, floodplains, backwaters, eddies, periodic marshlands, and the assemblage of life forms dependent on rivers for their existence and well-being. For anyone interested in the Anthropocene and the Great Acceleration, rivers offer a striking example of the consequences of human intervention in trying to control and domesticate a natural process, the complexity and variability of which we barely understand.
ASIN: 0300278497
VSKU: BVV.0300278497.G
Condition: Good
Author/Artist:Scott, James C.
Binding: Hardcover
Note: Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.
Condition Notes: The item shows wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact including the dust cover, if applicable . Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.