In praise of floods : the untamed river and the life it brings / James C. Scott.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Scott, James C., author.

Series:

Yale agrarian studies.

Yale agrarian studies series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Irrawaddy River Delta (Burma)--Environmental aspects.

Irrawaddy River Delta (Burma).

River engineering--Environmental aspects--Burma--Irrawaddy River.

River engineering.

Flood control--Environmental aspects--Burma--Irrawaddy River.

Flood control.

Stream ecology--Burma--Irrawaddy River.

Stream ecology.

Valley ecology--Burma--Irrawaddy River.

Valley ecology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxi, 220 pages) : illustrations, maps

Place of Publication:

New Haven, Connecticut : Yale University Press, [2025]

Summary:

James C. Scott reframes rivers as alive and dynamic, revealing the consequences of treating them as resources for our profit 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.

Contents:

Introduction: A Word about Rivers

Rivers : Time and Motion

In Praise of Floods : Moving with the River

Agriculture and Rivers : A Long History

Interlude: An Introduction to the Ayeyarwady

Intervention

Nonhuman Species

Iatrogenic Effects

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-207) and index.

ISBN:

9780300281569

0300281560

OCLC:

1485004586