River Republic: The Fall and Rise of America's Rivers

by Daniel McCool

Overview

Daniel McCool chronicles the surging grassroots movement to bring America's rivers back to life and ensure they remain pristine for future generations. This book confirms the surprising news that America's rivers are indeed returning to a healthier, free-flowing condition. Through passion and dedication, ordinary people are reclaiming the American landscape, forming a nation-wide "river republic" of concerned citizens from all backgrounds and sectors of society. McCool profiles the individuals he calls "instigators," who initiated the fight for these waterways and have succeeded in the near-impossible task of challenging and changing the status quo. He ties the history, culture, and fate of America to its rivers and presents their restoration as a microcosm mirroring American beliefs, livelihoods, and an increasing awareness of our shared environmental fate.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231161312
Publisher:	Ingram Publisher Services
Publication date:	08/28/2012
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	408
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Daniel McCool is the director of the Environmental and Sustainability Studies Program and a professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Utah. He has won a number of awards for his teaching and publications, and his research focuses on water resources development, voting rights, American Indian water rights, and public lands policy. He has published widely in such journals as the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, Political Research Quarterly, and the University of Texas Law Review. This is his eighth book.

Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgments
1. Antigone's Claim
2. Unwritten Laws, Aberrant Transmissions
3. Promiscuous Obedience
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

Tim Palmer

This well-crafted page-turner is history and journalism at their best. The book tells with passion, precision, and clarity what has happened to a vital force of nature and offers a vision we can embrace and work toward with enthusiasm. Daniel McCool has given all who want to understand rivers a rare and precious gift.

Michael Brune

After an exhilarating whitewater ride through America's love-hate relationship with its rivers, Daniel McCool leaves us inspired and hopeful for a happy ending.

Wm. Robert Irvin

If past is prologue, Daniel McCool's eloquent history of river mismanagement in the United States should be required reading for anyone who cares about the future of our rivers. Weaving in stories that range from how polluted water killed one of Abraham Lincoln's sons to the surprising affinity toward conservationists felt by one of the greatest dam builders of the twentieth century, McCool details the multiple ways in which we have dammed, ditched, diverted, and degraded rivers. Ultimately, though, this is a hopeful book, illuminating our growing recognition that, like salmon returning to Washington's Elwha River or American shad in Virginia's Rappahannock River, we all need clean water and free-flowing rivers for our very survival.

James Lawrence Powell

Well-written, engaging, and witty--the best book I have read on rivers.

— James Lawrence Powell, author of The Inquisition of Climate Science

Editorial Reviews

If past is prologue, Daniel McCool's eloquent history of river mismanagement in the United States should be required reading for anyone who cares about the future of our rivers. Weaving in stories that range from how polluted water killed one of Abraham Lincoln's sons to the surprising affinity toward conservationists felt by one of the greatest dam builders of the twentieth century, McCool details the multiple ways in which we have dammed, ditched, diverted, and degraded rivers. Ultimately, though, this is a hopeful book, illuminating our growing recognition that, like salmon returning to Washington's Elwha River or American shad in Virginia's Rappahannock River, we all need clean water and free-flowing rivers for our very survival.

Wm. Robert Irvin

After an exhilarating whitewater ride through America's love-hate relationship with its rivers, Daniel McCool leaves us inspired and hopeful for a happy ending.

Michael Brune

This well-crafted page-turner is history and journalism at their best. The book tells with passion, precision, and clarity what has happened to a vital force of nature and offers a vision we can embrace and work toward with enthusiasm. Daniel McCool has given all who want to understand rivers a rare and precious gift.

Tim Palmer

well-researched and well-written...Highly recommended.

Choice

Presents the text of three of Butler's (rhetoric and comparative literature, U. of California-Berkeley) 1998 lectures exploring the meaning of Antigone. Questioning what forms of kinship might have allowed Antigone to live, Butler discusses the work of philosophers including Hegel, Lacan, and Irigaray and discusses how a culture of normative heterosexuality obstructs our capacity to see what sexual and political agency could be. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

McCool tempers the flow of statistics and environmental facts with liberal doses of wit and colorful anecdotes while offering a reassuring account of working-class citizens triumphing in a timely cause.

Booklist

Written in an easy-to-read narrative style that is at times poetic, River Republic is also filled with facts and political analysis.

Deseret News - Rosemarie Howard

...River Republic is an easy read that raises important questions about politics, money, and development along U.S. rivers while providing vibrant accounts of restoration projects all across the country.

H-Environment - Adam Mandelman

Daniel McCool has done a terrific job

River Management Society Journal - Steve Johnson

An authoritative exposé of the political economy of river management in the United States... An important book. River Republic offers essential lessons for entrenched water bureaucracy.

Anthem EnviroExperts Blog

A political scientist's account of the growing grassroots movement to restore and preserve the nation's rivers. "America's rivers are experiencing a renaissance," writes McCool (Environmental and Sustainability Studies/Univ. of Utah; Native Waters: Contemporary Indian Water Settlements and the Second Treaty Era, 2002, etc.). After many decades of developing, damming, diverting or dirtying nearly all of our rivers, Americans are now demanding clean, free-running waterways. River restoration is "a sociopolitical process, and it goes to the very heart of the concept of participatory democracy." Drawing on hundreds of interviews and visits to many restoration projects, the author notes that most projects take years to complete and usually begin with action by an "instigator," a single passionate individual who is an expert at street-level politics and can get people to think in new ways. McCool considers a range of efforts, from the modest Matilija Dam removal project on the Ventura River, to massive federally funded projects on the Kissimmee River, the coastal Louisiana projects and the Columbia River's endangered species programs. The author also traces the history of two federal agencies responsible for much of the nation's river exploitation: the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation. Both agencies, he writes, have long been vehicles for dispensing federal favors (dams, etc.). His inside story of the "Dams-R-Us" Corps, which is now struggling to deal with the damage, is direct and damning. After detailing how rivers have served particular interests through extractive uses, McCool celebrates the many restoration efforts that are revitalizing waterfronts and improving river recreation. Future successes will depend on a careful consideration of various tradeoffs. A broad, up-to-date, hopeful view of our nation's rivers.

Kirkus Reviews