Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download The Big Muddy PDF full book. Access full book title The Big Muddy by Christopher Morris. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Christopher Morris Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199977062 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 315
Book Description
In The Big Muddy, the first long-term environmental history of the Mississippi, Christopher Morris offers a brilliant tour across five centuries as he illuminates the interaction between people and the landscape, from early hunter-gatherer bands to present-day industrial and post-industrial society. Morris shows that when Hernando de Soto arrived at the lower Mississippi Valley, he found an incredibly vast wetland, forty thousand square miles of some of the richest, wettest land in North America, deposited there by the big muddy river that ran through it. But since then much has changed, for the river and for the surrounding valley. Indeed, by the 1890s, the valley was rapidly drying. Morris shows how centuries of increasingly intensified human meddling--including deforestation, swamp drainage, and levee construction--led to drought, disease, and severe flooding. He outlines the damage done by the introduction of foreign species, such as the Argentine nutria, which escaped into the wild and are now busy eating up Louisiana's wetlands. And he critiques the most monumental change in the lower Mississippi Valley--the reconstruction of the river itself, largely under the direction of the Army Corps of Engineers. Valley residents have been paying the price for these human interventions, most visibly with the disaster that followed Hurricane Katrina. Morris also describes how valley residents have been struggling to reinvigorate the valley environment in recent years--such as with the burgeoning catfish and crawfish industries--so that they may once again live off its natural abundance. Morris concludes that the problem with Katrina is the problem with the Amazon Rainforest, drought and famine in Africa, and fires and mudslides in California--it is the end result of the ill-considered bending of natural environments to human purposes.
Author: Christopher Morris Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199977062 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 315
Book Description
In The Big Muddy, the first long-term environmental history of the Mississippi, Christopher Morris offers a brilliant tour across five centuries as he illuminates the interaction between people and the landscape, from early hunter-gatherer bands to present-day industrial and post-industrial society. Morris shows that when Hernando de Soto arrived at the lower Mississippi Valley, he found an incredibly vast wetland, forty thousand square miles of some of the richest, wettest land in North America, deposited there by the big muddy river that ran through it. But since then much has changed, for the river and for the surrounding valley. Indeed, by the 1890s, the valley was rapidly drying. Morris shows how centuries of increasingly intensified human meddling--including deforestation, swamp drainage, and levee construction--led to drought, disease, and severe flooding. He outlines the damage done by the introduction of foreign species, such as the Argentine nutria, which escaped into the wild and are now busy eating up Louisiana's wetlands. And he critiques the most monumental change in the lower Mississippi Valley--the reconstruction of the river itself, largely under the direction of the Army Corps of Engineers. Valley residents have been paying the price for these human interventions, most visibly with the disaster that followed Hurricane Katrina. Morris also describes how valley residents have been struggling to reinvigorate the valley environment in recent years--such as with the burgeoning catfish and crawfish industries--so that they may once again live off its natural abundance. Morris concludes that the problem with Katrina is the problem with the Amazon Rainforest, drought and famine in Africa, and fires and mudslides in California--it is the end result of the ill-considered bending of natural environments to human purposes.
Author: Bill Lambrecht Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 1466879971 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
America's Missouri River may be the nation's longest and most historically significant river, encompassing many of America's natural wonders between Missouri and Montana, draining almost 600,000 square miles in ten states and part of Canada, and, after Lewis and Clark's expedition 200 years ago, opening the West to a frenzied rush of expansion. But the Missouri is also the site of a vast, politically driven drama. It tops a list of emerging big-stakes river wars around the country that pit conservation, development, farm, barge, American Indian, and government interests against one another in clashes made even more complicated by the scarcity of water in many river basin states. In Big Muddy Blues, veteran journalist Bill Lambrecht uses the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark's epic adventure west as a lens to show the other side of the story: what's been lost over 200 years. And the losses, on top of the 120 miles cut off the river by Army Corps stabilization efforts, aren't slight. Dependent on every word uttered in courtrooms and legislatures for their futures are more than 80 rare and endangered species, the family farms that require a stabilized river, the barges of shippers that require a heavier flow, and dozens if not hundreds of sacred Native American burial grounds. Running through it all is the water--more than 2,300 miles of it--that slakes the thirst of people in one-sixth of the nation and has, in the last few hundred years, been home to Native Americans, explorers, and settlers; river pirates, shipwrecks, and steamboats; and farmers, conservationists, and the Army. This is the story of "Big Muddy," of its influence on the formation and stability of our nation and of its place in the center of an escalating river war that will set the stage for water wars in the decades to come.
Author: Christine A. Klein Publisher: NYU Press ISBN: 1479825387 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 280
Book Description
Read a free excerpt here! American engineers have done astounding things to bend the Mississippi River to their will: forcing one of its tributaries to flow uphill, transforming over a thousand miles of roiling currents into a placid staircase of water, and wresting the lower half of the river apart from its floodplain. American law has aided and abetted these feats. But despite our best efforts, so-called “natural disasters” continue to strike the Mississippi basin, as raging floodwaters decimate waterfront communities and abandoned towns literally crumble into the Gulf of Mexico. In some places, only the tombstones remain, leaning at odd angles as the underlying soil erodes away. Mississippi River Tragedies reveals that it is seductively deceptive—but horribly misleading—to call such catastrophes “natural.” Authors Christine A. Klein and Sandra B. Zellmer present a sympathetic account of the human dreams, pride, and foibles that got us to this point, weaving together engaging historical narratives and accessible law stories drawn from actual courtroom dramas. The authors deftly uncover the larger story of how the law reflects and even amplifies our ambivalent attitude toward nature—simultaneously revering wild rivers and places for what they are, while working feverishly to change them into something else. Despite their sobering revelations, the authors’ final message is one of hope. Although the acknowledgement of human responsibility for unnatural disasters can lead to blame, guilt, and liability, it can also prod us to confront the consequences of our actions, leading to a liberating sense of possibility and to the knowledge necessary to avoid future disasters.
Author: Vicki Berger Erwin & James Erwin Publisher: Arcadia Publishing ISBN: 1467143251 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 160
Book Description
During the nineteenth century, more than three hundred boats met their end in the steamboat graveyard that was the Lower Missouri River, from Omaha to its mouth. Although derided as little more than an "orderly pile of kindling," steamboats were, in fact, technological marvels superbly adapted to the river's conditions. Their light superstructure and long, wide, flat hulls powered by high-pressure engines drew so little water that they could cruise on "a heavy dew" even when fully loaded. But these same characteristics made them susceptible to fires, explosions and snags--tree trunks ripped from the banks, hiding under the water's surface. Authors Vicki and James Erwin detail the perils that steamboats, their passengers and crews faced on every voyage.
Author: Michael Dickey Publisher: University of Missouri Press ISBN: 0826219144 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 176
Book Description
Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. The Origins of the Missouria: Woodland, Mississippian, and Oneota Cultures -- 2. The Europeans Arrive: Change and Continuity -- 3. Early French and Spanish Contacts -- 4. Turmoil in Upper Louisiana -- 5. The Americans: Rapid and Dramatic Change -- 6. The End of the Missouria Homeland -- Epilogue: Allotment and a New Beginning -- For Further Reading and Research -- Index.
Author: J David Erickson Publisher: Swede Hill Publishing ISBN: 9780984645954 Category : Languages : en Pages : 404
Book Description
"I caromed from the raft and crash-landed on top of Buck and Jim. We sprawled on the ice in a soggy-tangled heap, overwhelmed with the laughing sillies-summer goofies (summer was still two months away)-but close-call, life-saving sillies. "Rolling over, I welcomed the wet-woolly smell from our jackets. I said, "You guys are steaming like fresh horse turds." -Little Eric, "ice-out" on the Little Muddy River, April 1945
Author: Rod Wellington Publisher: ISBN: 9780994082930 Category : Languages : en Pages : 352
Book Description
If you're a fan of adventure and expedition stories, you'll know that most books in this genre focus on the expedition itself-the action, the struggles, the joys, the heartbreaks, the lessons, the rewards. But what about the events that happen prior to an expedition-the planning, the organizing, the logistics, the endless research, the pleas to prospective sponsors, the correspondence between team members? Most books in the adventure travel genre spend less than a chapter explaining "what came before." This book, however, is not like most. River Angels takes readers behind the scenes for a candid look at the simultaneous organization of three self-propelled expeditions and introduces the world to a burgeoning network of altruistic "river angels"-riverside citizens who not only assist long-distance paddlers, but also help preserve and promote the rivers they love.
Author: Christopher Morris
Author: Christopher Morris
Author: chad lewis
Author: Bill Lambrecht
Author: Christine A. Klein
Author: Vicki Berger Erwin & James Erwin
Author: Michael Dickey
Author: J David Erickson
Author: Dean Klinkenberg
Author: Rod Wellington
Author: Dan & Connie Burkhardt