The Great River
The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi
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- £12.99
Publisher Description
Instant Bestseller
Winner of the 2024 Willie Morris Award for Southern Nonfiction • A Chicago Public Library Must-Read Book of 2024 • A Booklist Editors' Choice
A sweeping history of the Mississippi River—and the centuries of human meddling that have transformed both it and America.
The Mississippi River lies at the heart of America, an undeniable life force that is intertwined with the nation’s culture and history. Its watershed spans almost half the country, Mark Twain’s travels on the river inspired our first national literature, and jazz and blues were born in its floodplains and carried upstream.
In this landmark work of natural history, Boyce Upholt tells the epic story of this wild and unruly river, and the centuries of efforts to control it. Over thousands of years, the Mississippi watershed was home to millions of Indigenous people who regarded “the great river” with awe and respect, adorning its banks with astonishing spiritual earthworks. The river was ever-changing, and Indigenous tribes embraced and even depended on its regular flooding. But the expanse of the watershed and the rich soils of its floodplain lured European settlers and American pioneers, who had a different vision: the river was a foe to conquer.
Centuries of human attempts to own, contain, and rework the Mississippi River, from Thomas Jefferson’s expansionist land hunger through today’s era of environmental concern, have now transformed its landscape. Upholt reveals how an ambitious and sometimes contentious program of engineering—government-built levees, jetties, dikes, and dams—has not only damaged once-vibrant ecosystems but may not work much longer. Carrying readers along the river’s last remaining backchannels, he explores how scientists are now hoping to restore what has been lost.
Rich and powerful, The Great River delivers a startling account of what happens when we try to fight against nature instead of acknowledging and embracing its power—a lesson that is all too relevant in our rapidly changing world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Upholt debuts with a majestic history of the Mississippi River, beginning with how a subterranean rift and the movement of glaciers created and shaped the waterway over tens of millions of years. Exploring Native Americans' historical relationship to the Mississippi, Upholt notes that Southeastern tribes farmed fish in the river and maintained a culture of "reciprocal obligation" that mandated they share any surplus with neighboring villages. This philosophy was challenged by European colonizers who sought to commodify the natural world and tame the river, building levees and dams to make it more reliable for commercial transport and create fertile farmlands in the floodplains. These efforts had disastrous consequences, Upholt argues, noting that the depletion of marshlands that once acted as buffers against rising waters has worsened storm-related flooding and that the erection of dams sometimes submerged Native American farmlands and burial mounds. The foregrounding of Native American history highlights alternative ways of relating to nature besides domination, and Upholt's crystalline prose evokes the grandeur of his subject ("On some mornings, the water lifts into mist so thick you realize there is no end to the air and no beginning to the water, so your boat floats upon and within the river at once"). It's an exceptional natural history that never loses sight of the human players involved.
