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.
| ISBN: | 9780300292305 |
| Publication date: | 5th May 2026 |
| Author: | James C Scott |
| Publisher: | Yale University Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 248 pages |
| Series: | Yale Agrarian Studies Series |
| Genres: |
Ecological science, the Biosphere Limnology (inland waters) Environmental management The Earth: natural history: general interest |
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.
In Praise of Floods features in the following genres: Ecological science, the Biosphere, Limnology (inland waters), Environmental management, The Earth: natural history: general interest
In Praise of Floods is available in Paperback, Hardback
In Praise of Floods was written by James C Scott and published by Yale University Press
In Praise of Floods has 248 pages
Yes it is part of Yale Agrarian Studies Series series
£11.69